The Jade Demon
by GoreslashDOW
Summary: I died. There's no way around it. But this is a second chance, I guess? This will be interesting. But I'm not the same anymore. There are big differences. But now I will make a difference. I won't let people around me get hurt, and I will make their lives better. SI and a rewrite of Thus the Jade Rose Scatters
1. Prologue

I walked up to the table that my friend was sitting at. I looked down with one earbud in. My friend leaned back and then sneezed, exactly at the same time as the person across from the table. They just kind of stared at each other, as I chuckled. I sat down, slinging my bookbag off my shoulder. "Hey, Bennet." His name isn't actually Bennet, it's David. Well, Bennet is his name, just his last name. There used to be another David in out class, and so we just started calling him that. It's like a nickname, but it's his last name.

"Hey, Charles." He said.

"So, do you want to show them how to down?" I asked him.

"No, I need to get this read." He said. He waved his book, _Brave New World,_ slightly.

"Ok." I opened up my backpack and started pulling out my own book. I set it on the table, then I remembered something. "Crap! I have a vocab quiz today, I need to look at what words I'll be working with!" I put the book back and pulled out my binder.

"What's that for?" Bennet asked.

"World History." I sighed.

"So how are you liking Coach Michael?" Bennet asked.

"I like his dad better." I looked up one of the words, which was actually a person, not a word, on my laptop. "There's just a lot of different things that annoy me. We're starting our second movie today after the quiz. We haven't even finished our second month of this semester." I leaned back in the chair. "Oh, I need to eat my breakfast, forgot about that." I closed my laptop and put my binder away, then ate my breakfast.

"Hey, Charles." He grabbed my attention by tapping me on the head.

"Yes?"  
"Ask me if BB is hungry."  
"Bennet, I swear."  
"Come on."  
"Bennet," I breathed in hard, then let it out in a sigh. "Is BB hungry, and I swear, if you…"  
"No, BB-8."  
"I will murder your family." Then the bell for first period rang. I picked up my bag and headed for the stairs.

Classes were easy today. I had a test in math, so I was able to finish that off really quick and take a nap. Then in AP Chemistry we only took notes, so it wasn't super hard. There was that one thing, that was funny.

"Hey Charles, is there a difference between a carbon-hydrogen bond and a hydrogen-carbon bond?" He asked.

I smiled, and said with a little laugh, "Now that's a common misconception. Now because one is a bond between substance one and substance two, and the other is between substance two and substance one. So a lot of people think that they're the same, but they actually are." Me, Bennet, my AP Chem. teacher, Mrs. Myers, who is awesome, busted up laughing. But then, less than a minute later…

The girl sitting next to use asked Mrs. Myers a question. "Um, is there a difference between a carbon-chlorine bond and a chlorine-carbon bond?" She was completely serious, unlike Bennet who was joking. I couldn't stop laughing to give her the same explanation.

Then I had World History with Coach Michael, which is always… easy. I destroyed that vocab quiz. But then in the middle of third period, I had lunch.

I set down my lunchbox. I opened it up and looked in and saw that half of my lunch was gone. Why is, oh yeah. I usually eat most of my lunch before, so only half isn't bad. I looked up once Bennet sat down. "Let's show them how to down." We both pulled out our phones and got on a game called Pokemon Showdown. We played it every lunch for… quite a while.

I debated who to send out. He has a Flygon out right now. So, I'll send out my Alolan Sandslash. He's obviously going to switch out. So I'll just use Swords Dance and then… "What!" He used Earthquake and took out over half my health. "Why wouldn't you switch out! You're four times weak to ice."  
"Yeah, but I'm faster." I chose an ice move, but he took me out before I could attack.

"That's stupid! That's stupid!" I dropped my phone onto the table and took a bite of my sandwich. "What if I had used an ice attack?"

"Well, that was just a-" He was cut off by was a person standing up in the middle of the lunchroom, holding a submachine gun. How'd they even get that into school? Then they fired. There were screams, there was chaos.

I was hit three times in the chest.

I was left on the ground.

Bennett tried to help.

I yelled at him and called him an idiot.

He ran.

I was bleeding.

I started crying.

I didn't want to die.

I just wanted to go home.

I wanted to be with my parents.

But we don't always get what we want.

 **This is the prologue for my rewrite of Thus the Jade Rose Scatters. I'm excited about this. I would like to thank two people. The first, Boyy2k. He's going to be my beta reader for this. Then, Gizmo Gear. We talked for a little bit while I was just starting out. We bounced ideas off of each other and he helped with some stuff that I'm changing. Like his weapon, and fighting style. He was a big help, and Boyy2k has been and will be, a big help.**

 **Before I end, I want to talk about the 'I' die. I am not trying to make light of school shootings, the opposite in fact. School shootings and gun control/restrictions are very big and important issues that need to be talked about. One person who explained it very well, in my opinion, is a guy named itsAlexClark on YouTube. I would recommend his video on gun control a lot. There's actually a walk-out tomorrow as a memorial for a recent shooting, and as a protest for gun control. Which shouldn't be mixed, at all.**

 **Sorry to get political on you there, I don't do that often. Back to the actual thing this is about. I hope you enjoy this new series!**

 **Also, I've decided to try and put something about the original at the end of every chapter. I thought it would be something new and interesting to do, even though it might not last very long.**


	2. Chapter 1

? 0 years old

I opened my eyes and was blinded. My eyes snapped close and I screamed. I couldn't help myself, it just came out. Something was shoved up my nose, then it sucked out all this stuff that was clogging it. That made it a little better, but I still couldn't stop crying. Someone picked me up and handed me to someone else. That's when I realized my body was a lot shorter than it was before. Other things were off too, but I really noticed the difference in height. Someone held me in only one arm and cradled me. I heard two people talking, but couldn't quite make out what they said. Then there was a shift and I felt someone's breath on my face. A female voice said, "Jade." Then she turned away, and I didn't feel her breath.

By this time I had calmed down and wasn't screaming my lungs out anymore. I heard another child, they were crying. The woman who was holding us both held us closer. Then, I was enveloped by the comforting warmth of someone who I would eventually learn was my mother.

* * *

Jade ? 0-3 years old

My early, early life was pretty boring. I was able to slowly gain control of my new body. Sadly, I took a ton of naps. My teenage mind didn't fit my baby body. It took too much energy to think a lot, even more, to move around. So my physical growth hadn't been the best. Though, I was a newborn, so I really shouldn't have expected much. I didn't see much of my twin sister though. We somehow got on different sleep schedules, so she was usually sleeping while I'm awake. Though I did see another person running around, other than my parents. I could tell they have blonde hair, but otherwise, nothing else.

* * *

Jade ? 3 years old

I crawled up to my dad and held my arms up. "Can I come up?" He picked me up and put me on his lap.

"What do you need, Jade?"  
"What's that?" I pointed to a black mark on his bicep.

"Well, it's called a tattoo, it's when people put ink inside your skin. You can't get one until you're older." He said sternly  
"Okay." I looked at it for a little bit. It seemed to be a heart that's on… fire. My dad is a blond man with a fiery heart tattoo on his arm. I have a mom with black hair and a white cloak. My sister's name is Ruby.

Suddenly all the pieces fell together for my three-year-old mind. I'm in Remnant.

I couldn't tell how I felt about that. I'm was little scared because I didn't want to die again. But I was also a little excited. Something about adventure just spoke to me. In my last life I never really got anything like that. Maybe rollercoasters, those drop towers were pretty fun. But nothing real. Also, I'll get a superpower and a force field!

Wait, but that means that I'm Jade Rose! My sister is Ruby Rose! That's not okay! That's the cheapest cop-out ever! But, I guess it'll be interesting being the twin of a protagonist.

* * *

Jade Rose 4 years old

We got a dog! Summer brought home this cute little white miniature schnauzer!

"It's so cute!" Ruby squealed.

"So," Taiyang asked us as the puppy ran around on the floor. "What should we name him?"

"What about Spot?" Ruby suggested.

"Or Killer!" Yang said. That's a little weird.

"What do you think Jade?" My mom asked.

I tilted my head to the side as I thought for a moment, before smiling. "How about Ein, that sounds like an interesting."  
"I'm okay with it." Yang shrugged.

"Okay, so his name is Ein."  
Ein died quickly. He didn't really grow at all. He had a genetic disease, we think. He was a purebred, so there was a decent chance for that. A few months later, once everyone was finished mourning, Summer brought home another dog. He was a Corgi, and we named him Zwei.

* * *

Jade Rose 4 years old

Why is being a child in Remnant so boring? I mean, I guess it'll become more interesting once I unlock my aura. I'll be able to find out and train my semblance, that should be interesting. But now, all I'm doing is reading. I found some interesting books on aura recently. My aura's not unlocked yet, so I can't really try anything out, but I'm learning a lot about theory. Some techniques that can be used with aura, that you don't need your semblance for, like sword beams. You can channel your aura into your weapon and you have a long or mid-range attack. I just hope that I'll have some control over it, as most of these you need a good amount of control to do them.

* * *

Jade Rose 5 years old

I was playing rock-paper-scissors with Ruby.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! Dangit!" I said, losing.

"I'm going out to get some food, does anybody need anything?" Taiyang asked.

"Candy!" I yelled back at him. We were in a different room than him.

"Does anyone, need, anything?" He asked.

"No!" Yang told him.

"Okay, see you!" He closed the door.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! Yes!" I threw up my arms in victory.

"Okay, best 24 out of…" Ruby trailed off.

"Out of…?" I gave her a second before finishing the statement. "47. So I need one more to win, and you need… eleven."  
"How are you so lucky?" Ruby asked.

"I dunno." I shrugged. There actually is some strategy in rock-paper-scissors. But Ruby doesn't know that. "Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! Haha! I win again!"

"Hey," I looked up and saw Yang peeking into the doorway. "You two want to go on an adventure?"

"Yeah!" Ruby said.

"Fine," I grumbled.

So, we walked out to the garage, and Yang grabbed the red wagon, and we went on an adventure. I knew what was coming, and didn't know if anything would change, just because I'm here, so I went along. Though, I really couldn't do much at a time.

And then we walked. We all just walked for a while, until Ruby got tired. We stopped for a second, and she climbed into the wagon. Not long after that, she fell asleep. I was next. I held out as long as I could, but eventually, I had to sit down. Then I felt myself nodding off. I bit the inside of my cheek, I pinched myself, but nothing worked for long. Eventually, I fell asleep too.

I was startled awake by a pitiful scream. My eyes shot open, and I saw three Beowolves. Yang stood in front of them. She swayed there for a moment, before falling to the ground in a crumpled heap. They leaped.

I yelled out and jumped forward, I think I accidentally kicked Ruby, but I wasn't paying attention to that at the time. I ran. No one came.

Their claws descended.

They were about to kill Yang.

I screamed.

There was a flash of pink.

Then only black.

I woke up in my bed. Qrow was waiting for me. I asked him what happened.

"Well, I was following you guys. But there were some Grimm that gave me some trouble. By the time I caught up, you three were sleeping. The Grimm were dead. What happened?"  
I looked at my lap and tried to remember what happened. "I don't know."

Ever since then, my eyes could change colors. There were only a few, and they were based on my emotions. Mostly they would just flash for a second, at most five. But then, people at school… well, I'll just tell you about the first time.

* * *

Jade Rose six years old

It was my first year of school. Summer had disappeared a few months earlier. Two kids had cornered me. Me and Ruby got separated somehow, we nearly always hang out at school. I looked at the two people cornering me, a girl and a boy.  
"Hey, freak, what's wrong with your eyes?" The boy said.

"What are you, a freak?" The girl asked. Oh yeah, I have these weird golden eyes. Which are apparently rare. Purple eyes, fine. Silver eyes… rare, but Ruby isn't bullied. Freaking amber eyes! Perfectly fine, but golden eyes, no. Those are weird. That makes sense. And, as I said, they could change color, but no one at my school was able to push me even close to the place I need to be for them to change colors. Anyway, back to the story,

"Wow, you both used the same exact insult, real original." I said, pretty bored with this situation.  
"Shut up!"  
"Yeah, shut up!"  
I smiled condescendingly. "Aww, young love. A boy and a girl, failing to torture someone together."

"Shut up, freak!" The boy said.

"Okay, this is actually bothering me." I put my hand on his shoulder. "You have to stop using the same insult over and over. Now, I'm done with this. Bye." I pushed past him. "I wonder where Ruby is.

"Hey, get back here!" The girl screeched. I turned and saw a hand coming towards my face. I ducked and the slap sailed over my head. I blocked her next slap, then grabbed her wrist on the third.

"Wow, you're bad at this."  
"Yeah, yeah, well you're a… blender!" She spat. "You filthy blender."  
I tried not to smile. I really tried. But, I failed. "Ok, I'm going home."

People tried to bully me after that. But, I didn't let them affect me. It was a little annoying at times, but I really just ignored them, and they never did anything big. There was that one time though. It didn't hurt me, it just got me really mad.

* * *

Jade Rose seven years old

So it was this bigger guy, held back a few grades, you know, the cliche. He was also doing those cliche insults, "Nobody likes you, kill yourself, you're ugly." that kind of stuff. But then someone spoke up. That's where everything started going downhill.

"Hey come on Flash." A girl came up and started talking to him. "Go easy on him, he doesn't have a mom." Summer had died two years back by now. It hit everyone hard. Luckily I was able to talk Yang about finding her mom. But Dad got depressed. He still helped out a little bit, but we really had to start fending for ourselves. I was actually able to use my skills from my past life. I could boil that pasta so well! Anyway, I'm getting off track here.

"Yeah," The guy said. "She must've killed herself to get away from him." Yeah, somehow everyone in school learned about it.

"What did you say?" I asked.

"I said your mother killed herself to get away from your ugly mug." He spat on my face.

I brought my hand up and wiped it off my face. I then opened my eyes. I could feel that the irises had turned red and were glowing the same color. I reached out and touched his face. Blackness enveloped everything, leaving only me and Flash behind. A gigantic scythe appeared in my hands. Flash backed away from me. "What the hell is happening?" I smirked and started talking in a demonic voice.

"I have invited you to your own personal nightmare." I then swung my scythe down and paused when he cried out and fell down.

He back up on his hands and knees. "No, no, please don't kill me!"

I just stared at him. I hadn't budged. "Um, Flash, are you okay?" I walked forward a few steps and crouched down. I reached out to help him up. He just shrieked and ran away. Maybe I overdid it. I need to be careful with scaring people now. Before the worst was I scared someone, and they joked about needing therapy. For nearly a year. At least, I hope they were joking. Now, it could be bad.

* * *

Jade Rose eight years old

"Hey Jade, come play tag." I groaned and marked my place in the book I was reading.  
"Why now?"  
"Because I'm bored." Ruby groaned. "Come on!"  
"No, because you'll just win." I opened my book again. It's a book about aura manipulation.  
"Come on, play! What are you even reading?"  
"It's a book about aura use, I'm trying to find tips about using my semblance." I smiled because I got an idea. "Actually, I will play tag. But only if I get to try out something."  
"Okay, what?"

I reached out and poked her forehead. "You're it." I rolled out of my bed and then ran out of the house. Ruby ran out and saw me. I smiled and then ran to the left while running to the right. Ruby ran at what she thought was me, caught up, then when she touched "me" I disappeared. I appeared behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around but no one was there. This continued for a while until I was out of aura. I flopped down onto the ground, sweating hard. Ruby walked up to me and tapped me with her foot.

"You're it."  
"Shut up, you know I won." It's always a competition.

* * *

Jade Rose nine years old

I've been thinking a lot about my weapon recently. I remember theorizing about dust lasers on Earth. That would probably be hard, but if I get Dad's help, I should be able to make something. But there's something else I want to do. I guess it can be my secondary weapon. I just have to wait until Qrow gets here and…

I walked up behind my "Uncle" Qrow. "Hey, Uncle Qrow." I spoke up.

He jumped and spun around. "Where'd you come from, kid? You were over there!" I looked down and saw that his hand was on his sword.

I smiled. "Just testing something out. But I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Okay kid, shoot."

"What's Aunt Raven's weapon like?" My smile got bigger, as my most likely drunk uncle sighed.

 **And there's the first official chapter! I hope you enjoyed the changes I've made.**

 **Now, you may be asking, "Wow, the space between this chapter and the prologue was really big, why is that? Will it be like that every time?"  
Yes, it was very long. I'm planning on waiting to post a little bit in between chapters. Now, it won't be as long as this break usually, I forgot about it, sorry. I'm doing this so that I don't catch up to where the story is currently. Now I might seriously divert the story away from what it is right now before I get there. But that will only be after some stuff I have planned, and I'm more confident in my writing abilities.**

 **Well, now that that's over, I hope you have a nice day!**


	3. Chapter 2

**Just a heads up, I forgot this last chapter, the bold is when Jade is using his semblance. The regular text is what actually happened.**

Jade Rose ten years old

My uncle was visiting again. I ran into my room, grabbed something, and ran back out. "Qrow! Qrow!" I ran up to my uncle and held up a black cylinder. "I need some help."

He put his head in one hand. "What do you need?"

I ran up beside him. I shifted the handle on top. "It should be spinning, so I can choose my blade." I jiggled it. "But that isn't happening."

He took it from my hands. He turned it around in his hands a little bit. "I don't see anything wrong with it. We'll have to take it apart."  
"Okay, let's go!" I dragged him into the spare room, which is also a workshop. He set the sheath down on a table and started asking for different tools.

We worked in silence for few minutes. Ruby and Yang must have been playing somewhere because they didn't come in and disturb us. After a few moments of it open, he pulled back and pointed two pieces out. "You flipped these two." He popped them both out and switched them. He then put the whole thing back together. He then shifted the handle. Nothing happened. "Hmm. I'll take this home and figure out what was wrong."

"Okay." I said sadly. He picked it up and started walking out. He put a hand on the doorknob.

"Wait!" I said. The door was slightly open. I looked up. There was a small bucket that was tied to the top of the door with a rope. That's so it would flip and not just fall on our heads. I sighed and kicked open the door. I jumped back so that I wouldn't get splashed. The door revealed Ruby and Yang waiting for us. I smiled evilly. "Hello there."

Both their faces fell. Ruby dashed away in a flurry of petals. But Yang was too slow. I grabbed her wrist. I smiled ear-to-ear. **Literally, my cheeks split open, revealing short, sharp teeth. My super short nails grew into talons, and…**

"Dad! Jade is using his semblance to become a demon again!"  
"Jade! Stop doing that!"

 **I changed back to normal.** "Fine," I grumbled.

"Let's play Remnant!" Ruby yelled from the other room. "I already got it!"

"Yeah!" Yang said.

"Qrow?" I looked up at him. He sighed.

"Fine."  
"Yes! I call Atlas!"

* * *

Jade Rose eleven years old

I smiled as Ruby opened up my present. She freaked out. "OHMYOUMIT'SSTRAWBERRYCHOCOLATECOOKIES!"

"Ow, I'm glad you like it." I smiled.

"Now open mine," Ruby said jumping up and down. I wasn't sure if it was because of her giving a present or my present.

I opened up the box. It took a few minutes as she used, like, four layers of wrapping paper and a ton of packing tape. But eventually, I got to a small box. I opened it up and saw a pendant on a chain. It was a rose made out of green jade. I smiled wide. "Wow, Ruby. How'd you afford this?"

"I helped a little," Yang explained. "So this is both our gifts."

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. I looked up and saw Uncle Qrow walking through the door. "Uncle Qrow!" Ruby ran up and tried to tackle him, but it just ended up being a hug.

"Happy Birthday you two!" He said. He handed me a decently large package. I grabbed it, and it was pretty heavy. I ripped it open quickly, a lot quicker than Ruby's present, and saw a shiny black cylinder. With eight colored blades inside it. My face lit up. "I fixed the problem with it spinning and got you blades for it."

"Uncle Qrow!" I yelled excitedly.

"Qrow!" Taiyang said. He was obviously annoyed.

"Well, I had it and figured I would finish it. And I'm going away on a mission for a while, so this is a going away present. Oh, and don't look so glum Ruby." He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Ruby. "Here's your present. It's blueprints for a weapon. I thought you'd like it. In a year or two, you can make it."

"Why does Jade get his so early?" Ruby asked.

"Because Qrow doesn't care what I think about his actions," Taiyang grumbled.

"Okay, well I think I should go now, bye!" Qrow rushed out the door.

* * *

Jade Rose eleven years old

I made a friend! I know that doesn't seem big and you probably thought I should have one by now. But it's surprising. I'm more mature, well, slightly more mature than everyone else, I keep to myself, and I seem to have some kind of aura that makes people less likely to like me. I don't understand it. So I was surprised when this guy came over and sat down next to me.

"Hi!" He said.

"Hello," I said warily.

"What's wrong?" He asked. "Am I not allowed to sit here?"  
"You are," I said. "I was just wondering why you sat there."  
"Oh, well that's simple." He smiled and opened up his lunchbox. "You looked lonely and sad just sitting there, eating a sandwich."  
"Well, that makes sense." I shrugged. "Well then what grade are you in, I've never seen you before?"  
"Five." He said. "But I'm in the advanced classes."  
"Oh," I said. "That makes sense."  
"Speaking of advanced classes, why aren't you in them? I've seen you, and you're very smart." He said. "So why aren't you in the smart people classes?"  
"I'm lazy. I also want to focus on some other stuff, not just classwork. So I'm taking the easy courses." I explained. "Though it'd be nice getting away from regular kids."

"So we're not regular?"

"Are you?" I asked.

"Well played." He smiled. "So what do you do in your free time?" So we hung out during that lunch. Then the ones after that. He showed me a game that I could get on my scroll, and we started playing it together. He's pretty cool.

* * *

Jade Rose eleven years old

I walking down the hall when I heard something going on inside one of the rooms. I stopped and opened the door slightly. I saw a person being cornered by five others.

"Why you hanging out with the freak, huh?" One person asked, before punching him in the stomach.

He coughed before answering. "What freak?"

One person kicked him in the back of the leg, then backhanded him. At that point, I was done. I kicked open the door the rest of the way and rushed in. They knew not to physically mess with me, either Yang destroys them, or I got a good night's sleep the night before and humiliate them. I also have my aura unlocked, so it does nothing for them. But Jayvee, that's his name, by the way, it's kind of weird, but whatever. Jayvee doesn't have his aura unlocked. So it hurts him. So they saw him being my friend and decided to do something about it. I don't understand why these people hate me.

Their heads whipped around when I kicked open the door. "Hello gentlemen, I would like to borrow Jayvee for a second." I smiled.

"You can't have him." One said. "Freak."

"Well that's a problem now isn't it?" I smiled. Sadly Remnant didn't have very strict bullying rules. But this also means that Remnant didn't have very strict bullying rules. So I could do what I want, without killing them or putting them in the hospital, and I could get away with very little punishment. I'm a terrible person.

I ran at one and swiped his legs out from under him. I caught him and threw him at another. I swung around and chopped one in the neck. He swayed for a second allowing me to attack the last two, grabbing their faces and stepping past them both, pulling them off balance. The last one, the one I chopped in the neck, wasn't quite finished yet. So I kicked him in the chest. I grabbed Jayvee's hand and pulled him up. I slung his arm over my shoulder and carried him out. After a minute I set him down and sat next to him. I breathed heavily.

"I wished they had their aura unlocked, just hitting them is tiring." I sighed. "You okay."  
"I hurt, but otherwise I think I'll be fine. Those guys are jerks." He said, panting along with me.

"I can help you with the pain." I offered.

"Really?"  
"Yeah, I can unlock your aura. It'll heal you, and you'll have protection in the future. After you train for a while of course. I'll help you of course." I smiled.

"That sounds awesome." He said.

"Okay," I said. I put a hand on his head and the other on his shoulder. "This is the one most people use. Words aren't really needed, but it's tradition. Okay." I closed my eyes and focused. " _For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee._ " I pushed my aura into his, unlocking the power of his soul. His bruises immediately started healing.

"This feels weird." He said.

"Yeah, it's weird at first," I said. I put more weight on the wall. "My dad never said how tiring that was."

"I owe you."

"Nah."

"Yes, I do."  
"No, you don't." I leaned in closer.  
"Yep." He did the same.  
"Nope."  
"Yes." His forehead bumped into mine.  
"False." I pushed back.

"Correct."

"It's correct that it's false? Yes! I win!" I jumped back and threw my arms up in victory. He jumped back too, I don't think he realized how close we got.

"No, that's not what I meant!"

* * *

Jade Rose thirteen years old

"Today you will be designing your weapon." Our teacher said. "Now some of you already have weapons. You can keep that, or you can create another with our seniors like everybody else, I really don't care at that point." She kind of mumbled at the end, but everyone heard. "You'll be teamed up with one of our seniors based on the stuff you said you wanted or whatever. There's a list on the board. Once you finish come to me, and I will give you the slideshow for our next assignment that I found on the internet."

"But won't it take us a week or more to finish our weapons?" One person asked.  
"Yep. Then you'll start the next assignment. Now find your partners."

I'm liking Signal so far during my first year. Most of my classes are a lot more fun than the ones in regular school. This one's okay, but I don't really like the teacher. Reminds me of another teacher I had, one from Earth…

"Hey, are you Jade?" I turned around and saw a wolf faunus.

"Yeah, I'm Jade, Jade Rose." I reached out my hand.

She smiled and took it. "I'm Echo, Echo Grissel." She vigorously shook my hand. "Okay, so you want a weapon with dust lasers?"  
"Yeah, I had this really cool idea for revolvers, and-" I stopped when she pulled a gray rectangle off of her thigh. It changed into a dark gray sword with a bunch of red lines running along it, with the edge being a blue laser blade. Wait, why is it…

"This is mine." She said.

"That's… really cool. Why are there two different colors though?" I asked.

"Well I painted it red, but I put the wrong Dust crystal in when I made it." She smiled sheepishly. "So what was your idea?"

"I thought I could make a revolver so that…"  
"So that you could have different lasers, go on!"  
"Okay. I also thought it'd be nice if I could um, shift it into a…"  
"A dagger so thought you'd have a short melee weapon! And there could be a small laser spike in the middle so you could still use it's laser things and stuff!" Her voice steadily got higher and faster with every word that tumbled out.

"Yes. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Because I was thinking there could be a hammer that I could pull back and change it from a constant laser too…"  
"To a more burst! It would be more powerful, but there would be a cooldown like skills in video games!" She ended with a squeak.  
"Can I design my own weapon please!" I asked angrily. "I mean you've been right on what I was going to do every time, but still…"

Her ears flattened. "Sorry, I can't help myself sometimes. I'm a psychic, I could read your thoughts and hear your ideas. They were good so I got excited. Sorry."  
"Oh, no that's okay. Let's start." She's kind of weird. But she's not too bad. A little excitable and her semblance is kind of annoying. But she will be able to help a lot, she seems smart.

"Why thank you! Though I'm not good at history. I've used my semblance to cheat on all the tests." She whispered that last part.

"I didn't need to know that."

Echo actually was a big help. I knew what I had to do, but she was able to help a lot with the specifics. We finished one gun in five days, then the other one about three weeks later. After the first one, we had a lot of other stuff we had to do for other classes and stuff. Afterward we became great friends. Though we never played strategy or card games. I don't trust her enough not to cheat.

* * *

Jade Rose fifteen years old

"Jade, come on!" Ruby said. "The new weapon's magazine comes out today!" She had a vice grip on my hand and was dragging me along towards the store. Sadly, knowing Ruby, this will be the first of many stores I'm forced to go to today. She wasn't looking ahead and bumped into this balding guy. "Sorry!"  
"Ah, it's okay." He smiled, then said, almost to himself. "Young love, so beautiful."  
"Sir, she is my twin sister!" I said.

"Oh, I'm so sorry."  
"But, I do love her," I said, looking at the ground.  
"What?" He was taken aback.  
"Because she's my sister, what were you thinking of?"  
He just walked away, shaking his head. "People these days." He muttered, before he went out of earshot.

"I love messing with people, so much." I laughed.

"That wasn't very nice." Ruby pouted angrily at me.

"You made me go on this trip, you're partially responsible. Whatever, let's get this over with." I was reluctantly led into the first shop.

 **I hope you liked the new chapter! I got another beta reader, so thanks to both Boyy2k and Archer1eye! They've both been really cool, and have helped out a lot.**

 **Anyway, see you when I post the next chapter! Have a nice day!**


	4. Chapter 3

This is what, the fifth shop I've been in? We split up inside the store, so I'm just standing here looking at different dust crystals. I already have all the dust I need for my weapons, but I could make another, one with a different crystal set up. Ruby is on the other side, looking at magazines. I heard a commotion behind me and I saw a bunch of guys in black suits coming in. They were led by a man in a bowler hat twirling a cane around one of his fingers. So the series has started. Now things will get interesting.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a dust shop open this late?" Roman asked as one of the thugs pulled a gun on the shop owner.

"Please!" The owner pleaded. "Just take my lien and leave!"

"Shh, calm down." Roman "comforted" the old man. "We're not here for your money." He turned to the thugs behind him. "Grab the dust."  
"I'm sorry." I walked up to him. "I think I'm going to have to object to that." I had to make a quick decision. My guns and my swords wouldn't work in an enclosed space like this very well, so… I pulled out my guns from their holsters, the flicked them so they turned into daggers, with a little dial on them. They were kind of short, fat daggers. The middle of them had a slot cut out, and there was a glowing spike in the middle. The one in my right hand was red, while the one on my left hand was a dark blue. **"I could use some help here!" I yelled at Ruby.** I had set up my semblance on her earlier, just in case.I dodged a clumsy swipe of a bright red sword, then stabbed him with my dagger. A small amount of ice started spreading from my attack, until he pulled away. I was suddenly hit in the shoulder by a small blast of energy, while I was dodging the sword of another henchman. I need to get out of here. Ruby flew past me, kicking someone outside. She then stood there, as Crescent Rose slowly unfolded. That's, really cool looking. I'll try. I tackled a guy out a window, then came up from a roll. I spun my daggers, which turned into guns, then I stored them in their holsters. I then reached behind me and gripped a handle behind me. The thing under the handle spun, then I slowly pulled it out. Once it was all the way out, another part popped out, effectively doubling its length. I look at the blade, which was pure blue. "I wanted the fire one." I mumbled under my breath. "Whatever, Ruby, you take the henchman, I'll take on the guy in the bowler hat." She nodded, then ran off with a trail of petals behind her.

I ran at Roman, as he held his cane up. A sight popped up, and he fired at me. I dodged to the back and to the side. I came up, and was hit in the face with another shot. I flew backwards, but right as I was hit, I managed to brush my finger against his face. I rolled onto my feet and smirked. He shot at me, and I dodged to the left **while dodging to the right**. I ran at him as he faced the wrong way. I charged my weapon with my aura and sent a large blue beam flying at him. He turned, I forgot to erase it with my semblance, and hit the sword beam with his cane. It was instantly covered in ice, along with his hand.

"What the crap?"

I smiled. "Dust is awesome." I ran at him with my sword. I sliced downward, but was blocked by two glass looking swords. I jumped back. There was a woman in a red dress standing there.I looked over at where Ruby was. There were a ton of goons. That must be why she's taking so long. What is even happening? I knew just being here would change things, but this is very different than…

I was thrown back when I was hit by a blast from Cinder. It was a strong attack, so I knew that I was low on aura. I narrowed my eyes. I had switched using my semblance on Roman after I touched him so I couldn't call over Ruby. It's also too loud to actually so it.. I can't use my semblance on Cinder, so I'll have to move fast. I stabbed my sword into the ground, don't do that by the way, I only did that because I have to move fast. I ran to the left in an arc, and pulled out my guns. They're two silver and green revolvers. I pulled back both hammers, switching them into burst attacks. I dodged a few attacks while spinning the revolvers so that the dust in my left hand was ice and the dust in my right hand was burn or fire, whatever you want to call it. I intercepted an attack from Cinder with shots from both guns, each orb colliding with her attack and creating an explosion that left a patch of ice on the ground. I shot at the ground in front of me, leaving small bursts of ice spikes on the ground. I then realized that that was useless, as she didn't move and shot another blast of fire at me. I dodged and could feel her patience leave her. A weird circle things on the ground appeared below me. A large explosion blew up below me. When I hit the ground I felt that some debris had cut a deep gash into my right aura was completely gone. So that sucks. I looked at my enemies. Cinder was charging up something and Roman had broken all the ice off of his cane. That probably took him a while. I switched my guns to earth dust and fired at the ground. It exploded in spikes, facing away from me. But the combined attack blast through those. I tried to roll out of the way but my legs had been burned. I sighed, and laid back. Suddenly there was a flash above me and a woman appeared. There was a purple glyph shielding us. GLYNDA HECK YES! I THOUGHT I WAS ABOUT TO DIE FOR THE SECOND TIME, THIS IS… YES! I heard a battle for a second, before I passed out.

I woke up to someone shaking me. "Jade, Jade, wake up."

"Don't shake me too hard." I groaned. I reached out my hand and Ruby grabbed it and pulled me up.

Glynda Goodwitch stared at us. It always looked a little intimidating, but in person, she is scary. "I think it's best if you came with me."

"I hope you realize your actions tonight will not be taken lightly, you two. You put both yourselves and others in great danger." She lectured us while we were sitting in these really uncomfortable chairs. I kept trying to get comfortable, but it didn't work.

"They started it!" Ruby protested.

"If it were up to me you would be sent home with a… Can you sit still for one second?" I withered under her gaze.

"I'm just trying to get comfortable."

"Ugh." She sighed. "If it were up to me, you would be sent home with a pat on the back…" Ruby's face lit up. "And a slap on the wrist."

She hit the table with a riding crop, and Ruby jumped back with an "Eep!" I laughed at my twin's reaction.

"But," The intimidating teacher continued. "There is someone who would like to meet you." She walked to the side and an older man walked out of the doorway with a mug and a plate of cookies.

"Ruby Rose, you have silver eyes. And you have golden eyes." He said, the last part directed at me. We both were at a loss of words, so he continued. "So! Where did you learn to do this?" He asked Ruby. Glynda was holding up a scroll that had a video of her fight on it. How'd they get that, I didn't see any cameras?

"S-Signal Academy." She replied. It's actually a very good school. A little lax on bullying though.

"They taught you to use one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed?" He asked.

"Well, our Uncle Qrow taught us mostly. He uses a similar weapon, so he taught her a lot." I smiled at Ozpin.

"Speaking of weapons, where did you get yours?" He asked me.

"Well, my guns me and a friend designed." I said. "And my swords were based off of my Aunt's weapon." My eyes widened. "My sword, I forgot it back there!" The female professor laid the blue blade onto the table. I picked it up quickly and sheathed it, saying, "Thank you so much!"  
He smiled, and set down the plate of cookies. Ruby took one, and shoved the whole thing into her mouth. "Yay, or nay?" I asked. She gave a thumbs up. "Awesome." I split the cookies in two piles. One for me, and the other for Ruby.

"Hey, yours has one more cookie!" She protested.

"Yeah, well you already had one!" I shot back.

"But that was a test one, it doesn't count!" She picked up one and broke it in half, shoving one half into her mouth and giving the other to me.

"No, that doesn't make sense at all!" I grabbed one of hers, and broke it in half, taking one of them to make it equal.

"Jade-!"

Ozpin cleared his throat. We both turned to him. "So, what is such an adorable girl, and such a nice young man doing at a school designed to train warriors?" He asked us after setting down his cup.

"Well, I want to be a Huntress." Ruby replied.

"Yes Ruby, he was asking why." I explained condescendingly.

"You want to slay monsters?" He asked, cutting off Ruby's reply.

"Yeah! I only have two more years of training at Signal! And then I'm going to apply to Beacon! You see, my sisters starting this year, and she's trying to become a Huntress, and I'm trying to be a Huntress so I can help people. My parents always taught us to help others so I thought, 'Hey, I might as well make a career out of it.' I mean-"

"Ruby, you're rambling."

"-the police are all right, but Huntsmen and Huntresses," She pressed on without paying any attention to me. "Are just so much more romantic and exciting and really, just goahhhsh, you know?"

"You have to breath when talking Ruby."

Ozpin and Glynda just stared at us for a second before Ozpin asked me a question. "And why are you training to become a Huntsman?"

"I want to become more powerful." I said. "I know that sound selfish and like what a supervillain would saw, but I don't want to be helpless. Like earlier, when she had to come in and save me, I don't want that to happen again." I looked at the table and rubbed the bandages on my arm. "I want to be able to protect myself. If I can't do that then I can't protect anyone else."

After a brief pause Ozpin asks a question again. "Do you know how I am?"

"You're Ozpin." Me and Ruby say simultaneously. "You're the headmaster at Beacon." Ruby added.

"Hello."

"Nice to meet you."

"How are you doing today?" I smiled. This conversation has taken a nice turn.

"Good."

"That's good."

"You want to come to my school?" He asked us.

"More than anything." Ruby said. He looked at me, and I nodded.

He looked up at Glynda, who humph'ed. Wait, when did he sit down? "Well, okay." He said. Ruby smiled, and looked at me in disbelief. I also had a big smile on my face. I couldn't help it.

"I can't believe that my little sister is going to Beacon with me!" Yang yelled, giving Ruby a bear hug.

"Wow, thanks Yang." Yang let go with one arm and slammed me into Ruby.

"This is the best day ever!" She squealed.

"Ow, please stop." I said.

She let go of us. "I'm just so proud of you!"

"Really sis, it was nothing." Ruby said.

"Yeah, they got away, and I passed out." I said.

"What do you mean? That was incredible!" Yang said excitedly. "Everyone at Beacon is going to think you're the bee's knees!"

"I'd rather they think I was a human, not some insect's joints. Why would they think that?" I asked.

"That's not funny." Ruby said.

"It's funny to me, and that's all that matters."

"What's with you two, aren't you excited?" Yang asked.

"Of course I'm excited, I just… I got moved ahead two years." Ruby explained. "I don't want people to think I'm special or something."  
Yang came up and put an arm around her. "But you are special."

"And you kick butt, you'll be fine." I said, coming on the other side.

We all looked up when a new report started playing. "The robbery was led by nefarious criminal Roman Torchwick who continues to evade authorities. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please contact the Vale Police department, back to you Lisa."

"Thank you Cyril," said the other news reporter, Lisa Lavender, it said at the bottom of the screen. "In other news, this Saturday's Faunus Civil Rights protest turned dark when members of the White Fang disrupted the ceremony. The once peaceful organization has now disrupted…" Ugh, if people weren't idiots, nothing like that would happen.

The newscast was cut off and a hologram of Glynda appeared. "Hello and welcome to Beacon." she said.

Yang turned to the hologram and asked, "Who's that?"

"It's…" I said before holo-Goodwitch cut me off.

"My name is Glynda Goodwitch."

"Oh."

"You are among the privileged few who have received the honor of being selected to attend this prestigious academy. Our world is experiencing an incredible time of peace, and as future huntsmen and huntresses, it is your duty to uphold it. You have demonstrated the courage needed for such a task, and now, it is our turn to provide you with the knowledge and the training to protect our world."

The hologram faded and Ruby, along with some other people said "Wow!" and rushed up to the window. They could see all that the whole time, but whatever.

"Lookl you can see Signal from up here!" Ruby said. "I guess home isn't too far after all."

"Beacon's our home now." Yang said.

"It sounds like we're going to a cult." I remarked.

"Jade!"

"What, it's true! Zorp The Surveyor is our father now." I said in a monotone voice. "Beacon is our home now. It just sounds weird." I looked around. But the only blonde person I saw was Yang. That's weird. Isn't Jaune supposed to be on this ship? Well, it must have been something that changed. He must be on another ship. Time to start my time at Beacon!

 **There goes chapter three! I hope you enjoyed it. I d** **on't have much to say, but have a nice day!**


	5. Chapter 4

Once we exited the ship and walked up to Beacon, Yang folded her arms. "The view from Vale's got nothing on this!" She said.

Ruby saw someone passing by. She freaked out. "Ooh, ooh, Jade! That kid has a collapsible staff!" She gasped. "And she has a fire sword!" I looked over at the people she was pointing at. The collapsible staff wasn't' very impressive, but the fire sword was decently cool.

"Ruby!" I slapped her face lightly to snap her out of it.

"Ow."

"Calm down, you see amazing weapons all the time! Also, don't you have Crescent Rose? That's one of the coolest weapons out there! Aren't you happy about that?" I asked her. "And you have mine, and you have Yang's!" I said gesturing to the weapons in turn.

She whipped out her red scythe and started… hugging it. Sadly I'm used to stuff like that. Ruby's not the most normal child. I probably didn't help with that at all. But that means I had a very interesting childhood. "Of course I'm happy with Crescent Rose! I just, really like seeing new ones." She shrugged. "It's like meeting new people, but better."

"Aww, that's so antisocial!" I said. I ruffled her hair and smiling down at her. "Great job!"

"Come on Ruby, why don't you go make some new friends?" Yang asked.

"But why would I need friends when I have you two?" Ruby asked.

"Exactly," I said, backing her up.

"Well," Yang grabbed a random group of people. "Actually my friends are here right now, gotta go catch up. 'Kay, see ya, bye!" Then she ran off, dragging them with her.

"Wait! Where are you going? Are we supposed to go to our dorms? Where are our dorms? Do we have dorms?" Ruby somehow got turned around, became dizzy, and nearly fell down. I grabbed her hand, and she narrowly didn't hit a trolley, or whatever that thing is called, full of suitcases.

"Ruby!" I laughed. "Come one, you can do better than that."

"What are you doing?" I heard a loud voice from behind me. I pulled Ruby up and turned around. I saw a girl in a white dre… combat skirt.

"Sorry" Ruby apologized, not meeting the girl's eyes.

"Sorry?"

"Yes, that's what she said," I smirked. "Do you need hearing aids?" I got dark stares from the white-haired female.

"Please, do you have any idea the damage you could have caused?" Weiss asked. She grabbed one of the briefcases. "This is Dust, mined and purified from the Schnee Quarry!"

"Okay, but if it had been properly packaged, then unless she directly put nearly all of her aura into the briefcase, then there wouldn't be any damage," I explained. "If you are who I think you are, then you should know that." I cocked my head. "So why are you mad?"

"Oh really," Weiss said. "And who do you think I am?"

"Weiss Schnee. Heiress to a heartless corporation, the Schnee Dust Company." I laughed to myself, on the inside of course, at her reaction.

"Heartless?" Ooh, her voice is getting higher. Let's see what else I can do.

"Well yeah. Don't you know what your father does? He oppresses the Faunus you hire, the working conditions are terrible and dangerous, there aren't really any benefits to working other than the quantum of a salary they get, do you really want me to continue?" My smile was the big creepy evil smile I sometimes get.

"What? How dare- The nerve of-!" She stared at me for a second before scoffing and turning to walk away.

"I promise I'll make this up to you!" Ruby called at the retreating figure. "That wasn't very nice."

My hands were shaking, so I shoved them into my pockets and shrugged. "Yeah, it kind of wasn't. Let's go find the auditorium." So we left the courtyard and walked to the auditorium. We didn't run into either Blake or Jaune. I guess they only came over because of the explosion originally.

Ruby and I wandered around for a little while. Well, quite more than a little while. But we found the auditorium... eventually. Then we scanned the room. I took us a few seconds, but I saw and pointed out Yang. "There she is. Looks like she saved us spots."

"So, how's your first day going little sister?" Yang asked.

"She almost exploded!" I smiled. "She nearly fell into a Schnee's luggage, and apparently the dust in it wasn't packaged well." I shrugged. "She yelled at us, I insulted her, she yelled some more, then she stormed off."

"You!" I heard a loud voice from behind me.

"Ooh, that sounds like her," I said. "I don't think I'll turn around."

"Jade," Yang said.

"Fine." I turned around to see a very angry Weiss behind me. "Hello there fine lady, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." I fake bowed.

"I'm really sorry about what happened," Ruby said around me.

"Do you really want to start making things up to me?" Weiss asked.

"Absolutely!" Ruby said, getting excited.

"Read this, and don't ever speak to me again." She pulled out a pamphlet about dust, shoved it into my hands, I thought it was supposed to be for Ruby, and then left.

"Why did she even come over here?" I muttered to myself.

Feedback whined a little bit before Ozpin's voice was heard over the speaker system. "Ahem, I'll keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge. To hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you and all I see is wasted energy. In need of purpose, direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step." He then walked off. Ozpin is awesome. I like him a lot.

Glynda walked up to the microphone. "You will gather in the ballroom tonight. Tomorrow your initiation begins. Be ready. You are dismissed."

"He seemed kind of off," Yang said.

"Almost like he wasn't there." Ruby nodded.

"Or like he was worried about something," I said. "I still like him though, he seems cool.

"Like what?"

"I dunno. Why would I know that?"

I curled up inside my sleeping bag. It was nice and warm. But, I wasn't falling asleep. I was just laying there, wide awake. I have problems sleeping sometimes, my brain is too active I think, it doesn't let me fall asleep. I'm not really sure. I pulled out this small bottle, shook out two tablets, and popped them into my mouth. I crunched down on them, they were orange flavored. Nice. Now, before you start freaking out, I'm not abusing any drugs. I don't really need actual sleeping pills. I just sometimes take some melatonin supplements to help me sleep sometimes. It's nothing big.

A second after I put the bottle away I was hit in the side of my face with a pillow. I turned to my sisters, who were arguing about something. I threw it back. "Come on guys! Don't you want to be Huntresses, get decent aim!" Though of course, they would never actually use pillows in a fight.

"Sorry, Jade!" Ruby said.

"Yeah sure," I grumbled. "Sure you are."

I then pulled out a book from my bag to help me sleep. It's non-fiction, of course. For some reason the fiction in Remnant is… crap. I can't find an explanation for it. So I just read non-fiction. This one was about the expanding your aura, like making the soul battery thing larger, through meditation and pure force of will. They called it cultivating. It's interesting, and I think I'll try it out. Though it reminded me of those Chinese comics, where their spiritual power is given in levels. Combat Continent was one. That was pretty entertaining.

I was jerked out of my daze when I heard loud noises coming from a little while away. I looked up and saw that Ruby and Yang were fighting in front of a girl in black reading a book. Oh, looks like they met Blake. "Ruby!" I called over. "No pulling hair, we don't want to destroy this place, we just got here!"

"Okay!" She took her hand away from Yang's hair and I went back to my book.

I suddenly heard someone yelling over from where they were fighting. I just got back to my book, come on! I suddenly looked up and saw Weiss again. "What in the world is going on over here?" She yelled. "Don't you realize some of us are trying to sleep?"

"Hey," I called over to her. "Why are you yelling, don't you realize some of us are trying to sleep?" I grinned evilly when Weiss shot me a dark look. If looks could kill… I'd probably have been dead a long time ago. I suddenly felt tired. Oh, I guess it's time to sleep.

"Wonder what were those two worked up about?" Ruby asked. Nora and Ren had just walked by, Nora talking animatedly about something, and Ren not saying much. It took me a second to actually recognize them, I was still half asleep.

"Oh, who knows… So! You seem awfully chipper this morning." Yang addressed this to Ruby, not me. For obvious reasons.

"Yep!" Ruby said happily, pulling out her weapon of red death. "No more awkward small talk or 'getting to know you' stuff."

"Right." I smiled sleepily. "Just killing stuff, and each other."

"Jade, no murder," Yang told me.

"Fine."

"I'm just glad to let my sweetheart do the talking," Ruby said, cuddling the large piece of metal. It must be cold, that's probably not that fun. But she loves her scythe.

"Well remember you two, you're not the only ones going through initiation. If you want to grow up you're going to have to meet new people and work together." Yang said.

"Ugh! You sound like Dad." Ruby said.

"Wow, I wonder why," I said. "Maybe because he's our Dad!"

"Okay first of all, what does meeting new people have to do with fighting?" Ruby asked.

"Well from other people you can learn new techniques, and fighting styles. You'll learn not only how to fight Grimm, but also if you get close to someone you'll learn how to counter them and their fighting style." I smiled.

"Well, okay," Ruby said. "But I don't need to meet new people to grow, I drink milk."

"Yeah!" I said.

"Oh, now you're on my side?"

"Yes, now I am. Wasn't before, but now I am."

"But what about when we form teams?" Yang asked.

"True, you'll have to meet people then."

"Uhm, I-I don't know, I-I'll just be on your team or something." Ruby stammered.

"Maybe you should try being on someone else's team." Yang messed with her hair.

"My dearest sister Yang, are you implying that you do not wish to be on the same team as me?" Ruby asked, getting close to our sister.

"W-what. No! Of course, I do, I-I just though, I don't know, maybe it would make you break out of your shell or something." Yang said.

"Don't worry Ruby, you can be on my team," I said, fastening my circular sheath on the back of my belt that held up my black pants. "Even if Yang doesn't care about you, I do."

"What the-! I don't need to break out of my shell!" Ruby exclaimed. Yeah, there's no way I'll be able to do anything in that conversation, whatever. This happens a lot. I can recognize when I won't make an impact. I turned away from my squabbling sisters and focused on my weapons. I strapped two holsters to my thighs and put my guns in them. I then put a denim coat over my dark green t-shirt. I know everyone else has these really cool looking outfits that are unique to them, and I have a normal one and look like a regular person apart from my weapons, but I don't care. I like green because it's a nice color and it's connected to my name. I like these pants because they're comfortable. I also really like this coat. It's a connection to my first life. It just like the jacket I had then, the one I loved, the one I died in.

I pulled the jacket a little around me a little and I could feel my eyes turn a dark blue. This isn't the time to think about that.

I heard the evil cackling from my left. I looked over and saw Weiss talking to Pyrrha. I'm really a terrible person, aren't I? I smiled as my eyes changed back to their original color. I walked over to the two girls. "Well hello there," I said.

"Not again," Weiss whined.

"What? You asked me a question about my opinion and I answered it. Hi," I turned to Pyrrha. "My name is Jade." I held out my hand, and she shook it.

"Pyrrha, it's a pleasure." She smiled as she met my eyes.

"Oh, you're Pyrrha, that's awesome! Nice to meet you." I smiled back and let go of her hand. "I'm guessing a lot of people have introduced you about joining their team, that probably sucks and is really annoying," I said.

I got a small smile when I heard Weiss go, "Hey!"

"What's wrong, you shouldn't be mad unless you were the one annoying her." I fought down my smirk. "You know she's still a person. I'm guessing you were treating her like a way to get ahead. That's not very nice." I turned around and looked at Pyrrha, ignoring the furious Schnee behind me. She'll get over it, and luckily I don't have to deal with her on my team. That's Ruby's problem. "Though I do have a question. Why'd you come to Beacon, wouldn't it be easier to go to Haven? You're from Mistral, and your family's there too. Wouldn't it have just been easier to go to Haven?"

"I thought I'd get a better education here. Beacon has a better reputation then Haven." Pyrrha shrugged.

"Oh, well that makes sense. That's probably a good decision." I nodded.

I then heard Glynda Goodwitch on the speakers."Would all first-year students please report to Beacon Cliff for initiation? Again, all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff immediately."

"Beacon Cliff? That doesn't sound good." I said to myself. "Whatever, see you two later!" I waved the two girls goodbye.

But then something weird happened. On my way there something weird happened. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and saw Pyrrha. Yang waggled her eyebrows as she passed us. That little…

"Thank you." She said.

"For what?" I asked her.

"You treated me like a regular person. People don't really do that. Thank you."

"No problem. I guessed you get people freaking out all the time. I like variety in my life, you should get some too." I shrugged. "And honestly I don't get why people treat celebrities as differently as they do. You're a person too." I looked around. "Crap! I think we're going to be late!" I started running, and Pyrrha followed me.

"Sorry!"

"It's fine!"

I ran up and stood on one of the platforms, seeing everyone else was too. I put my hands on my knees and panted.

"Ooh, what were you two doing back there?" Yang grinned widely. Is that something people say? I don't know.

"We were talking, what were you insinuating sister?" I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Nothing." She lied with a slight chuckle. I was about to say something, but our headmaster interrupted me.

"For years you have trained to become warriors," Ozpin said. "And today your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest. Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignments of teams. Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates today."

"What?" Ruby said softly, groaning.

"Joy," I said under my breath. Wait, what if I'm with Cardin? No! That would be terrible! I think I'd just have to quit.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon. So it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well." Ozpin explained. Ruby groaned again. "That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years." Yes, because that is the best way to put two people together. We're basically being paired up at random.

"What?" Ruby protested.

"See, I told you." Someone said down the line.

"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you will die."

"Destruction," I smiled. "Finally a happy point. Let's do this."

"You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation. But our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. We'll regard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?" No one said anything. "Good! Now take your positions." I crouched down and waited for my turn. I saw each person being launched off the cliff in turn. When it came close to my turn I counted the time in between each launch. Then when it came to my turn I jumped in time with it and got nice stable launch. Now I have more time to think about what I'm going to do so I don't die when I land. That would suck, I don't want to die again.

 **Here's chapter four! I've gained a new beta reader, NevTSC! He helped a lot, along with Boyy2k and Archer1eye. Big thanks to them all.**

 **On a completely related note, I have made a P!A!T!R!E!O!N! Sorry about doing that, wouldn't allow me to just put it in normally. It's not connected to my fanfiction writing, I don't want to get sued, but it's connected to my YouTube account where I make piano covers. It'd be awesome if you support me on both, or either, of those.**

 **Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful day!**


	6. Chapter 5

I flew through the air. The wind whipped it my face, it actually felt good. I smile and reached back behind me. I grabbed the handle of my katana and whip it out. It's the wind dust blade. Perfect, that's what I actually wanted. I waited a little bit and sliced at the ground. It hit the ground and rebounded. It was slowed down a little bit, and hits me, slowing me down. I repeated this until I get close. I then put it back then and pulled out my guns. I spun each once to get them to ice. I fired both at the ground and make a little ice slide. I hit it, a little harder than I would like, and start sliding along. I flipped off and hit a tree. Well, it sucked, but at least I didn't die. I sat down for a second. I needed to calm down for a second. I breathed deeply and tried to calm down my heart. That was insane, but actually pretty fun. I heard a growl from my left. I sighed, this is so annoying. I pulled down the hammer and switched my right to burst mode. I shifted the dust in it slightly and shot the Beowulf. While it was paralyzed I started shooting it with my left, which I had switched to fire. I held the trigger while the Beowulf started going up in flames. I stopped when its noises of pain stopped. Well, I guess I should get going.

* * *

So in the show, they never show how long the initiation is. Because I've been trying to find the path that he talked about, or at least another person, for fifteen minutes, and haven't found anything! I've killed a few Grimm, and that was nice. Because it was some variety, not just monotonous walking. I've heard gunshots, but they were too far away. By the time I would have gotten there, everyone would have been gone.

At about twenty minutes in, I heard gunshots and sound of fighting. But these ones were close. I ran over to where I heard it and saw a decently large pack of Beowolves. Then there was one person in the middle, completely tearing through them. I thought I might as well help out. I pulled out my sword and started slicing through them. After two or three minutes, we had wiped out the pack. I sat down hard.

"I'll need a second after that, you okay with that?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure," Pyrrha said, sitting down next to me. "Nice to see you again."

"Thanks. It's nice to see you too." I looked over, and our eyes met. My gold ones stared into her green ones.

"I guess we're partners now."

"Looks like it."

As we were sitting there I reached into my pocket and pulled out a mint. It was crushed. "Oh, that's disappointing." I shrugged and opened it up, pouring it into my mouth.

"You have a mint?" Pyrrha asked.

"Mints," I corrected. "I always have candy on me, want one? It's probably crushed though."

"I'd love one." I pulled out a mint and handed it to her. That one was only split in half. Lucky. "Thank you."

"No problem." We sat for a second longer in silence before I put my hands on the ground. "Well, let's get going!" I pushed myself to my feet, the turned around and held out my hand. She grabbed it, and I helped her up. But I miscalculated and pulled her into me. We bumped together, and I spun away. "I'm sorry." I looked at the ground, my face burning slightly.

"It's okay." She said. I turned around with my composure regained.

"Let's go," I said, letting out a breath.

So we walked along for a while without finding anything. So, to pass the time, we talked. We told stories, asked questions, some icebreakers, and getting-to-know-you-stuff. You know, all that stuff Ruby was convinced wouldn't happen. But it was nice. I don't normally do stuff like that, especially with people I just met, but I did. It must have been because I knew her from the show. I also knew what was going to happen to her. The thing I didn't know, is what I was going to do.

* * *

So, throughout our walk, and while we were talking, I seemed calm. But on the inside, I was freaking out. I had somehow replaced Jaune, who knows where he is, and my name starts with J, so that could mean I'm the leader of team JNPR! I don't know strategy, I suck at chess. I used to say I was decent, but I was pretty bad. I'm decent at Fire Emblem, but only on the easier levels. I never finished that second save at a harder difficulty. My mistakes could lead to someone's death!

"What's wrong?" I'm jolted out of my thoughts by my new partner.

"What?"

"What's wrong?" She repeated.

"Nothing's wrong," I said.

"You just looked worried about something. And I asked your favorite color and you didn't say anything."

"I was thinking about my answer." I lied.

"It's not that hard a question." She pointed out.

"Well then, blue probably. Though green is a close second." I said.

"So what were you worried about?" She asked.

I sighed. "I'm just worried that we'll never get out of this stupid forest!" I lied, again. It kind of sucks, but I don't want to tell anybody about my first life. Just not yet.

"Yeah, it's pretty big." She said. We walked in silence for a minute.

Then we came across a weirdly positioned group of boulders. "This is weird. It kind of looks like a golem" I said. I climbed up on one and looked down at it.

"There are red lines on these," Pyrrha noted, running her hand along one of the boulders.

"Yeah and there's this weird…" I trailed off as I looked at this mask that's on the boulder I was on. "We need to get out of here!" I grabbed her arm and dragged her away.

"What?"

"It's a Petra Gigas! It's a Grimm!" I started running, with Pyrrha alongside me. I yelped slightly as boulders flew by my head, then came back and nearly hit me in the face. "We'll have to find everyone else!"

"Can we really outrun it?" Pyrrha asked.

"Hopefully." I continue running. I tried to shrug, but it didn't work. "I don't know its speed, but I think we can."

So we ran, and we ran, and we ran. Then after that guess what? We ran! I'm kinda jealous of the original Jaune. He didn't have to run, he got to fly. He didn't want to fly, but I don't really want to run. So we don't all get what we want.

So we ran for a little while longer. Eventually, we left the trees, and there was this big clearing. I could see a line of people, which I guess was all the other main characters. I guess I am one now. Though I'm the twin of the protagonist, so was that ever in question?

"I'm going to distract it for a while, you go get a relic!" I yelled.

"How are you going to distract it?" She asked me.

"Well, if I'm able to touch its mask, I could probably get it to leave us alone, but I guess I'll just annoy it until then," I told her. "Go!" I put one foot down and spun around. I pull out my two guns and spin them to earth and ice Dust. I shot a few bursts of earth energy from my left hand's gun. They hit some boulders, warping the rock. Hopefully weakening it. All the while I shot a constant stream of ice energy from my right. The constant setting is less powerful, but it's constant. It's useful in some situations. Also, I won't have to aim too much, I can just swing it around.

I dodged a boulder, then jumped off of the spikes in his limbs. Those were the things I made with my left gun. I faced its mask, then reached in and touched the mask. I flipped away from it, **then sprinted away**. The Grimm then chased after **me**. I walked over to the group. "I have… it dist...racted for now." I said between gasps. "But we need… to go."

"Yes, there's no sense in dilly-dallying. Our objective is right in front of us." Weiss said.

"She's right. Our mission is to grab an artifact and make it back to the cliffs." Ruby says, nodding at Weiss. "There's no point in fighting these things."

"Yep. I might be able to get the Petra Gigas I have running in circles over there to fight the Nevermore so that we can get away." I said, sweat running down my face.

Suddenly a giant Deathstalker burst out of the forest. "Where did that come from?" I yelled. "Everyone take relics and let's go!" I concentrated on my semblance for a second. **The Deathstalker changed from a Grimm into a team of four people in armor**. The Geist lashed out and his the Deathstalker **group of kids.** The scorpion-like Grimm screamed in surprise, it wasn't thinking it would be attacked by its ally.

"Jade!" I turn around and see Pyrrha. "Come on!"

We ran out of the clearing and found a place with a bunch of pillars. Each person hid behind a pillar with their new partner because the Nevermore circled around. "Well, that's great!" Yang yelled.

The Deathstalker burst out of the forest again. Well, we're stuck, that sucks. Then the Geist came through behind it. Lucky it wasn't possessing the rocks anymore. Though I've been using my semblance on it, it must have worn off when it stopped possessing the boulders. So I shot it a few times until it died while I was running away. Screw that stupid thing.

I looked up and saw pink explosions around the Nevermore. That must be Nora. Pyrrha glance back and saw everyone fighting, and said, "Go! Go!" She kneeled down and fired at the scorpion. I continued running, and just dodged the Nevermore when it slammed into the bridge. I jumped to my feet and looked over to the other side where they were struggling with the Deathstalker.

"We need to help them!" I said.

"Let's do this!" Nora ran up beside me. I nodded, and she hit me back, ow, then unfolded her war hammer to its full form and slammed it into the bridge. I went flying through the air. When I was in the air I saw that there was a crack in the Grimm's plating. It must have been from the fight with the Geist. When I hit the ground I rolled to my feet.

"There's a crack in its armor!" I yelled. "If I can get close I might be able to incapacitate it!"

Nora slid past me and knocked Blake off the cliff. It only distracted me for a second, as I knew she would be fine. We all run at the Grimm. It attacked with one claw, which Pyrrha deflected with her shield. Then it attacked with the other, and I jumped off of it. I pulled out a blade from my sheath. It was bright yellow, perfect. I come down and shove the blade into the crack, and channel my aura through it. Electricity arced through whatever Grimm have inside them. I then came down, accidentally touching it with my leg. The lightning went through my body too, and I cried out in pain. I stopped, then saw a yellow stinger coming at me, quick. I was knocked to the side. I eventually got up just in time to see the part of the bridge on our side collapsing with the Grimm fall down with it. The rest of what should be my team stood on the ground in front of me as I fell onto my butt.

"I'm glad that's over," I said. "They should probably be wrapping it up about now.." I looked up and saw a headless corpse of the Nevermore falling down the cliff. I could barely see her, but I could tell it was my sister on the top of the cliff. Also, I remembered, how could I forget the coolest thing that happened. In Volume one. "Heck yeah! My sister kicks butt!"

I 'decided I should probably get up, so I did. When I got up, my shirt shifted and I noticed something I didn't notice before. "Agh! Stupid little…" I reached down between my shirt and my back and pulled out a pure white feather. "These are the most annoying, little, buttfaces!" I clenched it in my hand and destroyed it with a small pulse of aura from my palm.

"What was that?" Nora asked.

"A feather. I'll explain to you guys later, right now we need to get up to the top of that cliff." I told her.

"Can't you just fly?" Nora asked.

"I can't fly." I sighed. "Let's just find a way to walk up that cliff."

* * *

"Agate Archer, Pheonix Delaney, Cadee Teale, and Tsavorite Tempest, you retrieved the black pawn pieces. You will work together as team APCT(Apricot). You will be led by Agate Archer." A guy with this weird red arrow on his cheek high fived a person in a white suit. They walked off stage and we followed them up onto it.

"Jade Rose, Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie." Ozpin was saying our names as we walked up to the stage. When we stopped we put our hands behind our backs. "The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward you will work together as team JNPR." Nora hugged Ren. That's a little weird. "You will be led by… Jade Rose." I expected it, but still, I was a little surprised. I smiled, and Pyrrha gave me a light punch on the shoulder. We walked off the stage, and my sister's team walked on behind us.

"Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao Long. The four of you chose the white knight pieces. Lead by, Ruby Rose." I clapped along with everyone.

I heard a faint, "I'm so proud of you!" As I saw one of my sisters tackle/hug my other one.

"Looks like things are shaping up to be an… interesting year." Ozpin said.

RWBY was the last team to be announced, so everyone was leaving along with them. I walked up to my sister and high-fived her. "Yeah! Together we'll rule this school!"

She gave a shaky, "Yeah." as her response.

A person walked up to me and Ruby. "Hello, here are your room assignments." They said. They handed both of us pieces of paper, which said what room we're in, where they are, and had four keys to out rooms taped on them.

I looked over at Ruby's. "Hey, looks like we're right across from each other, nice." I turned to my team. "Well, let's head over there."


	7. Chapter 6

"Okay," I said once we got to our dorms. "So I've heard from my father that trust in teams will be very important. So I'll answer the two questions you're probably thinking. Why did I pull a feather out of my back, and how did I get the Geist to attack the Deathstalker?" I smiled. "Am I right?"  
"I was a little curious." Ren admitted.

"I thought those!" Nora said.

"Okay, well I got the Geist to attack its fellow grimm with my semblance." I told my teammates.

"Is it…?"

"It's not controlling Grimm, Nora. It's illusions. Once I touch someone I can manipulate their senses. I can make someone see, touch, feel, taste, hear anything I want. Works on Grimm too, just found that out." I opened up my suitcase and started unpacking with everyone else. It's not too hard

"So could you just touch someone and make them feel enough pain that they couldn't do anything?" Ren asked me.

"Yeah, but then I couldn't do anything either, my concentration would break, and they could attack," I said, wincing just thinking about it.

"So it's not perfect." Pyrrha nodded.

"Yeah. Anything I make my victim see or hear, I see or hear also. So I only use it for big things when I'm mad, I just use it for small subtle things, just like what Pyrrha does." I smiled when I heard something drop.

"What? How do you even know about that?" She asked from behind me.

I turned around. "Oh, too close!" I jumped back and stumbled over my suitcase. I spun around and recovered my balance. I then looked her dead on in the eyes. She looked surprised, which makes sense. She's been trying to keep it a secret. "I watched your fights. Well not your fights specifically, just tournament fights in general. I found something weird with your fights, and I saw some inconsistencies in your opponent's movements. I'm guessing some form of telekinesis?" I said tentatively.

"Yes, polarity. I can control magnetism. I'm surprised you could see that." It seems the initial shock had started to wear off.

"Well, it is well hidden. Good job." I smiled. She smiled back.

"What about the feather?" Nora interrupted.

I groaned in response. "I had hoped you'd forget about that. It's pretty weird, and I don't really like talking about it. My DNA is mutated. The leading theory for faunus is they mutated from humans. Evolution and all that stuff. But I guess mine didn't mutate enough. I have this small little wing. Wing, singular. It's small, very little muscle, very useless. Sometimes a feather falls off and irritates my skin." I shrugged. "But it's part of me, so I don't want to cut it off." I closed my suitcase, I was finished unpacking. "Anything else?"

"No."

"Nope."

"I have a question," Ren said. "Does it affect your movement?"

"The wing?"

"No, your semblance. The concentration of using it, I mean."

"Oh, yeah that. At times. It depends on how complex they are. Simple ones I can do pretty easily. But if they become too big, or involve, like, more than one sense, I slow down. Eventually, I can't even walk anymore though." I sighed. "Anything else?"

"Not right now."

"Awesome! I really don't have any questions, so… night!" I climbed into my bed and started falling asleep.

* * *

I slowly woke up. Then I looked over at the alarm clock I had set up late last night. Then it stopped being slowly. I threw off my covers. "Crap! Why didn't you guys wake me up?"

"We tried to." Nora told me.

"Nora tried to." Pyrrha corrected. "But we thought you would wake up in time."

"Whatever." I grabbed my uniform and ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I got ready as quick as I could and ran out. My teammates weren't in my room anymore. Crap! I sprinted out the door and got to the room where my first class is going to be. I burst through the door and saw everybody already there. Well, crap.

"Nice of you to join us, Mr. Rose." Mr. Rose, wow, that sounds nice. Like something someone would say to disguise their real identity. 'You can call me… Mr. Rose.'

"I'm sorry. I'm just not used to the schedule, it won't happen again." I looked down in slight shame. Though he was Professor Port, so not a lot.

"Just sit down." I followed his command. "Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Vale, as well as the other…" I immediately spaced out. I remember from the show that I don't really need to pay attention in his class. Reminds me of a teacher from Earth.

I need to plan ahead. So what do I need to do? After this, I'll have to deal with Cardin. That shouldn't be too hard. I'll just duel him. What else… There's the stuff with Blake and Roman, I can try to help with that. Then we do out missions and stuff, the Breach… um.

"I do sir!" AH! What was that? I was thrown out of my thought as Weiss stood up and yelled,

"Well then, let's find out,"Port replied. Oh yeah, there's this thing. "Step forward, and meet your opponent." Weiss walked down the stairs and stood in the middle of the classroom with her rapier out.

The cage rattled while team RWBY cheered her on.

"Go Weiss!"

"Fight well!"

"Yeah, represent team RWBY!"

"Ruby! I'm trying to focus!" Weiss yelled back. She really didn't like Ruby at first, did she? After all, her whole team cheered her on. I put my head in my right hand and shook it a little bit. I can't wait until she becomes a better person.

Ruby mumbled her apologies before our teacher started the fight. "Alright. Let the match begin." The professor swung his ax and opened the cage. A boarbatusk charged out, right at the huntress in training. Weiss jumped aside and hit it with her sword. Due to the armor, the attack was meaningless. The boarbatusk turned and Port said, "Haha, weren't expecting that, were you?"

"Hang in there Weiss!" Ruby cheered. Weiss charged and tried to attack, but her sword got stuck in its tusks.

"Bold new approach. I like it!" Weiss struggled with the boarbatusk for a minute, Ruby cheering her on the whole time. Weiss faltered and the sword was yanked out of her hands and thrown across the room. The Grimm hit her away and the teacher said, "Now what will you do without your weapon?" The boar-like monster charged and Weiss rolled out of the way. She ran over to her weapon and grabbed it up.

"Weiss, go for its belly! There's no armor underneath-" Ruby, trying to give Weiss some advice, which could help her a lot.

"Stop telling me what to do!" Weiss screeched. The boarbatusk jumped up and started spinning towards Weiss. Weiss used her semblance to block it and jump up onto a glyph in the air. Right when it hit the ground with its unguarded belly up, Weis launched off her glyph and stabbed it. She fell to one knee panting.

"Bravo! Braavo! It appears we are indeed in the presence of a true huntress in training." Though aren't all the females in this room huntresses in training? That's all of team RWBY. What makes Weiss more true then them? Are there fully trained Huntresses staying undercover? "I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Be sure to cover the assigned readings and stay vigilant! Class dismissed." During the whole thing, Weiss glared at Ruby. Ruby looked disappointed. I remembered that the next two conversations, Weiss and Ruby, and Weiss and Port, are very important. So I decided to stay back and go to dinner with my teammates. Luckily they gave us a heads-up that his classes last all day, and everyone brought snacks, and a lunch. Though, I was late. So I had to figure out a way to touch my professor, luckily it was pretty easy. He's pretty gullible. Then I made it look like I was in my seat, turned myself invisible, then bought some food. I felt like I was breaking some rules, but I needed to eat.

There was actually one time where he asked me a question. Luckily Pyrrha covered for me.

I sat down with my team. Blake and Yang were sitting across from us, and Ruby and Weiss hadn't arrived yet. I pulled a roll off my plate and took a bite out of it. "Bread's delicious."

"Yeah…" Yang said.

"Ruby'll be fine, it's-" I got bumped in the back of the head by someone's elbow. I glanced back and saw who it was. "It's Cardin that should be worried!" I heard snickers behind me. "I'll murder his family."  
"That's generally frowned upon." Ren told me.

"Only generally," I said. "There's still hope."

Ruby sat down. "Hey guys, I'm going to go study so I can't eat with you guys, but I wanted you guys should know that I'm fine, bye!" She said very quickly and sped off.

"Ugh! Pancakes!" Nora snorted, waking up. You would think that she got enough sleep during class, but whatever.

"Hey, I'm going to go check on Ruby, I'll see you guys." I stabbed a bratwurst with my fork. I walked out while taking a bite of my sausage. well, it's not technically a bratwurst, but it's pretty close.

I knocked on Ruby's dorm room's door. That's weird, I feel like there's a better way to say that. Ruby opened up the door. "Oh, hi Jade! What do you want?"  
"I wanted to see what's wrong. So, what's wrong?" I asked my twin.

"I just want to do a good job, so I'm studying to be better!" She said.

"Wow, that's very proactive of you, are you feeling well, are you flushed, is everything okay?" I asked her, acting concerned. She hit me. She hit me. "Hey, you don't have to work so hard. You'll be a great leader anyway."

"But Weiss doesn't trust me."

"But Ruby, that'll be fine. Just be amazing like you always are, and she'll come around. And if she doesn't, we'll finally settle that argument on if I can get away with murder or not." I smiled. "So everything will be fine."

"You couldn't."

"I totally could! Well, you seem to be fine, I'm going to my room, see you." I turned around and went into my room.

I pulled a book off of my bed. I opened it up to the page I marked. I sat down on the ground, setting the book in front of me. There's something I want to do. But I can't just get more control over my aura, I can tell that won't be enough. I need to increase the amount of aura I have. So I sat criss-cross applesauce, there is another term for that, right? Whatever, I did that, and put my hands in my lap. My pointer through pinky fingers were cupped on the bottom, while my thumbs were arced over the top. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and relaxed, focusing on my soul. After a few minutes, my eyes were shocked open. I was standing on something, I don't know what, in a dark blue void with little swirls of green. I looked around and saw a version of me, but their skin and clothes were pure green. "I'm guessing you're my soul?"

"Yeah." He said.

"Why didn't the book say anything about this?" I frowned.

"Well probably because this is different for every person, how should I know? I'm your soul!" He yelled.

"True, though I was really just talking to myself."

"But if you're talking to me, you are talking to yourself."

"That's just semantics." I waved him off. "Anyway, what do I have to do to make my soul stronger."

"You have to fight me." He said. "The longer you fight me, the stronger you become. But it's emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausting. Your aura will go down, but when it comes back, it will be stronger. Um, what else…" He tapped his foot. "Your aura will be going crazy, so the people on the 'outside world' will be freaking out." He laughed.

"So you're basically that guy from Bleach?"

"Oh, the guy in Ichigo's mind. Yeah, basically." He smirked. "Do you want to get started?"

"Sure." I reached for my weapons. Well, crap I guess I don't have those right now. I guess I just have to use hand-to-hand combat. Crap.

I ran at my soul, wow, that's a really weird sentence. I jumped and kicked it. Well, tried to, it blocked with its forearm and counter-attacked. I hooked my leg on his arm and pulled myself towards him. I brought up my left knee and hit him in the face with it. I then kicked off his chest and jumped back.

"Nice move."

"Yeah, everything seems to be easier here," I smirked. "This might not be as bad as I thought." This time he attacked first, running up with a left feint, before attacking with a right-handed uppercut. I'm might be able to do this for a while. Maybe. Probably not too long.

* * *

I collapsed on the ground, or whatever I'm on here, completely winded from this paradoxical fighting. I groaned. "So how do I leave?" I asked my soul.

"I just let you out, do you want to leave?"

"Yes please." He waved his hand and my soul world thing, whatever, I'll find a better name for it, melted away.

"-de! Jade!" I woke up to Pyrrha shaking me.

"Hi." I said.

"What were you doing?" She asked me. "Your aura was plummeting and you were shaking really hard."

"I was training. This book had ways to make my aura stronger, like a larger health bar in a fighting game." I gestured to the book. "I'm sorry. I didn't know I would do that stuff. Sorry." I rubbed the back of my neck.

"Well, just give us a heads up next time," Pyrrha said, letting go of me.

"Ok."

"It looked like you had a seizure!" Nora said.

"Thanks, Nora, thanks. I really needed to know that." I dragged my feet across the floor and flopped onto my bed. "That was really tiring. Everything feels like crap." I checked my scroll while the rest of my team did various stuff in the background. "Holy crap!"

"What's wrong?" Pyrrha asked.

"The time! It's been over an hour!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, you've been training, or whatever that was for an hour," Ren told me.

My arm hit the floor. "But it was like twenty minutes!" My eyes closed. "That really sucks." I then passed out.

 **And school is out! In one day, I still have a day left. But I will be able to write more once it does end. I will have some things that will stop me from writing, but I'll give everyone a heads up for those times.**

 **I don't have anything else to say, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and have a nice day.**


	8. Chapter 7

I fell down to one knee. "Are you done yet?" My opponent asked.

"Yeah, I'm good for now." I could feel myself slipping away. "Wait! I need to ask a question!" The feeling stopped as my opponent tilted his head.

"What do you want to know?"

"Well, the thing I'm working on, will I be able to finish it?" I asked.

"Jade," He shook his head. "I'm your soul, I know everything you know. Which means you know the answer."

"Just say it."  
"Not for a while. You'll have to practice it for a long time until you're fast enough. But you can get up to sixteen right now." He said. "It will take a very long time to finish though."

"Yeah okay. I'll go now." And the void inside my mind, soul, wherever it is, melted away.

I opened my eyes in my bed. This training is tiring. This much work and I can only do sixteen hits. I already knew that deep down, but hearing it… just sucks. Though I have felt a lot better. I've had more energy, even though I've just used it all back up in training. Wait, does that mean my aura will grow exponentially? If I get more, then I'm able to use more in the soul training thing more, meaning I'll get more from my training. Though it's my physical strength too, I've been neglecting that recently. By recently I mean most of my life, but… whatever.

I heard the bathroom door opening. "Are you done training?" Pyrrha asked hesitantly. I groaned in response. "Great." I heard the door close.

"So how are you doing?" I asked. I heard no response. "Did she go back to the classroom? Wait, no bathroom." I paused. "She must have. What was she doing coming out then?" I rubbed my cheek into my pillow. I then folded it to give me some more support. "Whatever." I then fell asleep. This aura training has helped my sleep cycle a lot.

* * *

"So, there we were, in the middle of the night." Nora started her story.

"It was day." Her partner corrected.

"We were surrounded by Ursai."

"They were beowolves."

"DOZENS OF THEM!" She yelled.

"Two of them." He said.

"But they were no match, and in the end, Ren and I took them down and made a butt load of lien selling Ursa skin rugs!"

"Ah, she's been having this recurring dream for a month now."  
"So she had this dream, told you about it, then changed her story?" I asked. Ren nodded. "That sounds about right." I looked down at my schedule. After this, I have combat class and then history.

Suddenly I heard cries of protest mixed with laughter. "Ow, that hurts!" I turned around in time to see Cardin tug at Velvet's ears again. "Please stop."

Cardin laughed again. "I told you they were real."

"What a freak." The rest of his teammates laughed with him. Cardin let go, and Velvet walked away.

"Atrocious. I can't stand people like him." Pyrrha said.

"He's not the only one." Blake said.

"It must be hard to be a faunus," Yang said. "Oh, um, Jade, are you okay?"

My smile grew wider. "Yes, I'm fine. What's wrong?"

"You're eyes are glowing red!" Nora exclaimed.

"And? I'm just happy that we have combat class next." I chuckled and stood up. "I'm going to head out a little bit early. See you!" I turned in my tray with my hands shaking, then headed into my next classroom.

* * *

"Ah, hello Mr. Rose." Glynda greeted me when I entered. "You're early, do you want something?"

"I do have a request to make." I smiled. "Would I be able to duel Cardin Winchester today?" I asked her.

"Yes. I was actually going to make you duel today, so this is a nice surprise." She let a small smile cross her face before becoming all business again. "Now, sit down, the class will be starting in a few minutes." It was true, people had started coming in. My team joined me by my seat.

"So what happened?" Pyrrha asked.

"I'm going to kick Cardin's butt." I smiled. "I volunteered to duel him today."

"Okay. Fight well."  
"Oh don't worry, I will." My smile grew wider.

"Hello everyone, today there was a request for a duel. Cardin Winchester and Jade Rose, please get on the stage."

While I was walking up to the stage I caught up to Cardin. "Hey, I'm looking for a nice fight." I reached out my hand to shake his.

He hit it away. "Whatever." I don't even care, I got what I wanted. Idiot.

We stood on the stage, facing each other. Cardin smirked. "What's wrong with your eyes, freak?"

"I'm just a little angry." I smiled at Cardin. "Now Cardin, I would like you to apologize to Ms. Scarlatina, and never touch her again," I told him. I then started walking around behind him, but **he couldn't see that.**

"Who?"  
 **"Velvet?" I offered.** He gave me a blank stare. **"The rabbit faunus you were bullying earlier today."**

"Oh, that animal? Why should I do that?"

 **"Because if you don't, I'll make you wish you could die."** I stopped behind him, **completely invisible.**

"No." He then ran **at me.**

 **"Don't say I didn't warn you." I shrugged. Then, my body started changing. Claws shot out of my fingers, which became about a foot long. My skin turned into a dark green color, then wings burst out of my back. I then grew to three times my size. Demon me leaned back and roared, showing multiple rows of many stained and jagged teeth.** That's when it happened. You see, my conscious mind knew it wasn't real. But, on a deeper level, I was scared. This, monstrosity, that I had created, was horrifying. I look back on it, and I'm a little proud. But my subconscious didn't know it was real. So I felt this primal urge to… run. It took everything I had not to. But that means I lost concentration, and the illusion faded.

"What the…"

"I'm behind you," I said, quickly regaining my composure. He started to turn, but I hit him in the neck. He staggered forward, then started turning around to attack again. He swung at where he saw me, but I wasn't there. I then shot him in the face with my gun on fire mode. He then swung at me again, but I narrowly dodged. I then jumped back for a little bit of time and holstered my guns. I grabbed my sword and pulled it out with a fire blade. I won't be able to keep away from him with long range, so I'll have to change from my guns. I blocked an overhead swing with my sword then slid it down the rod to burn his hand. He recoiled, and because of that, his mace came down, wrenching the sword out of my hands. I jumped back again, and he smirked. He thinks he has the upper hand. I smirked back. I reached down my left leg to grab a backup handle, then pulled out my... completely normal blade with no dust in it. Crap. I put my sword to my side to defend against an attack from Cardin. It was still very strong, so I was knocked to the side and onto the ground. He's not a terrible fighter, I have to admit.

"Not so confident now, are you freak?" I sheathed my sword, spun the cartridge, and pulled out my ice blade. I rolled to the side to dodge an attack, then dashed forward. I hit his feet with my sword, freezing him to the floor.

"What the..." I saw him getting angrier as he struggled, trying to kill me with his eyes.

I dashed behind him. "Sixteen hits. Sixteen hits." I said, smiling. "Let's do this." I put my left foot and hand forward while moving my right hand and foot backward while also bringing my right hand up behind me. He swung his mace behind him, but I ducked. I then twisted his arm, making it so that he let go of his weapon. I then hit him twice in the back with an open fist, releasing small bursts of my aura when I made contact. Then I hit him twice more, in different places on his back. I then stepped forward, and hit him in the side four times, then stepped forward again, hitting him eight times in his chest. I let out a sigh. That took a lot out of me. I looked down at my hands. There were some bruises from my aura not being able to protect me from hitting armor, pretty hard.

I then got slugged. Hard. In the face. Ow. I got up from where I had been knocked down to and walked a few steps backward. "Fine then," I said. He broke through the ice on his feet, so I shot them with a steady stream of ice from a gun I had quickly pulled out. "Screw. You. Too." I flashed him my ruby eyes, then spun my right handed gun, pointing it at him. I then fired at him using fire dust a bunch. Eventually, his aura dropped into the red. I put my guns away and walked up to him, picking my red blade along the way. I sliced through the air, stopping it right next to his throat. I channeled some of my aura into the blade to heat it up a bit. Not a bunch, but enough to make him feel it. "Now, you will apologize to Ms. Scarlatina, and never touch her again. Capiche?" I smiled evilly, ear to ear. He nodded quickly. I blinked and my eyes turned back to golden. "Good, please don't make me do this again." I pulled my blade away from his throat, spun it once, and sheathed it. My smile persisted as I walked off the stage. I always wanted to do that. When I was watching the show, I always wanted to punch him in his stupid face. Of course, I didn't actually punch him this time. But it still felt so satisfying.

While I was walking back I was pulled over by Glynda. "Mr. Rose. Anger can be a powerful tool. But do not let it overtake you. Then you will be weaker, sloppy. Use it as a tool, do not let it use you."

I nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "And please don't threaten your fellow classmates ever again. I'll let you off with a warning this time, but next time..."

I bowed my head a little bit. "I understand. I won't do it again."

"Good, now go join your teammates." She waved me away and called the next pair up.

Before I got back to my seat, I pulled out my scroll to check my aura levels. I watched as the yellow bar turned red. Must've still been healing. Crap, I pulled that way too close. Looks like it's still not usable. I'll have to train more. Ugh, physical exertion. I've gotten better about it in Remnant, but I'm still kind of lazy in that regard. I sat down next to my team.

"That was nice of you." Pyrrha said. Must've somehow overheard what I said to Cardin.

"Well, racism is stupid, I really don't see why people are like that. He's also a jerk, and needed to be put in his place." I smiled. "Also I hate him, and that felt really good."

"What was that move you did, near the end?" Ren asked.

"It was based off something I saw on a show. It was called 8 Trigrams 64 Palms. It was where they hit their enemy in places all over their body 64 times, releasing energy from their palms on each hit. That's why I've been training." I told them.

"Interesting." He said.

I started watching the next duel with disinterest. Neither of them were anybody I knew, and they weren't really interesting fighters. My stomach growled a little bit. "I left lunch early, I didn't finish my food." I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of those cinnamon balls. I popped it into my mouth and smiled. I love these things.

"Do you always have candy?" Pyrrha whispered, curiosity tinting her voice.

"Most of the time," I whispered back. "Sometimes I run out and don't have the chance to get more."

"Could I have one?" I thought for a second, then I nodded. I'm usually selfish and don't share, but, I mean, it's Pyrrha. Why shouldn't I?

"Sure." I pulled out a mint and handed it to her.

"Thanks!" She shot me a small smile before turning back to watch the fight. It was pretty cute and I liked it. That was weird. Whatever.

 **I AM SO SORRY THIS WAS SO LATE! A thunderstorm fried our modem, and because of the service we have, it's a rental. This means that we have to wait for them to replace them. IT TOOK A WEEK! I offered to sue them, but they're already being sued. They advertise speeds they are physically unable to give. I hate them so much.**

 **I'm also on a trip right now. For some happier news. We're with some friends my parents had in college.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Hopefully the next one will come out faster.**

 **As always, my beta readers are amazing! And I hope you have a good day!**


	9. Chapter 8

I walked into my next class and was greeted with a very interesting sight. I saw Cardin standing in front of Velvet. He was bowing down, and apologizing very loudly. When he finished, Velvet seemed very taken aback. She stepped back once and then replied. "U-um. Okay. Thank you."

"Goodbye." Cardin said, still bowing, and then stepped back. He continued walking backward, still bowing, and sat down in his seat.

That was… interesting. He is actually scared of me. I used to 'scare' people, but real fear… I feel like a supervillain. This is nice.

Well, I won't do anything else. People always rebel against dictators. I might make jokes, but I won't force him to do anything. Seeing how far he took the apology, I don't know how far he would take things.

I shook those thoughts out of my head. I don't need to turn into Cinder. I need to focus on history. Because that is one of the few things I've been learning in school that isn't shared with Earth. Math, most of science, except dust, and analyzing literature doesn't change. Pi is called Luia. I don't know the backstory behind that at all. But it's still 3.1419265 etc.

So I pay attention in history. That's the point of that complete tangent. I seem to do that a lot. Sorry to anyone reading this.

"Yes! Yes, prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution, more popularly known as the Faunus War, humankind was quite, quite adamant about centralizing the faunus population in Menagerie!" Doctor Oobleck said zooming around the room, yanking me out of my thoughts. How much time just passed with me thinking about being an evil person? "Now! While this must feel like ancient history to many of you, it is imperative to remember that these are relatively recent events. Why the repercussions of the uprising can still be seen to this day!" He paused for a second to sip his drink. "Now! Have any among you been subjugated or discriminated against due to your faunus heritage?" I looked around the room. Velvet tentatively raised her hand, along with another faunus, one who had brown cow ears. "Dreadful, simply dreadful! Remember, students, it is precisely this kind of ignorance that breeds violence! "I mean, I mean, I mean just look at what happened to the White Fang!"

"Now, which one of you young scholars can tell me what many theorists believe to be the turning point in the third year of the war?" He asked us. He, I just thought of something stupid. What do you get when you're watching a show and you want two academics to develop a romantic relationship?

"The battle at Fort Castle." Weiss answered. A scholar-ship! Also, that's the best name for a fort ever. I want to build a fort and call it Castle.

"Precisely!" He told her. "And, who can tell me the advantage the faunus had against General Lagune's forces?" He asked. No one said anything. "Cardin, perhaps you would like to share your thoughts on the subject?" That's not good.

"Well, I know it's a lot easier to train an animal than a soldier…"

I let out an overly loud sigh. "Some people, they just don't learn."

"What?"

"General Lagune had the great idea to attack the faunus at night. What he didn't know is that most faunus have nearly perfect night vision. They had a physical attribute that made them better than his human forces. Lagune's forces were quickly demolished after his deadly mistake, and he was captured." I shook my head. "He thought that the enemy faunus were worse than his humans, and was severely mistaken. Then he paid for that mistake."

"Very good Jade. Now, moving on!" I could feel Cardin's eyes boring holes into the back of my head. I might have made a mistake. But I should be fine. Should be.

* * *

A few days later we were on a field trip. Though it wasn't really a field trip. It's really just one of the teachers using us for free labor. But the Forever Fall Forest is really nice. Especially this time of year.

"Yes, students, the Forest of Forever Fall is indeed beautiful," Glynda told us. "But we are not here to sight-see. Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside the forest. I am here to here to make sure that none of you die while doing so." We stopped, and I heard someone bump into somebody else. "Each of you is to gather one jar's worth of red sap. However, this forest is full of the creatures of Grimm, so make sure to stay with your teammates. We will rendezvous here at four o'clock. Have fun!"

I walked along with Pyrrha with Nora skipping ahead, and Ren walking beside her. We stopped at a clearing that had four taps in it. They seem to have done this before. There were two pairs, each close to one another. Pyrrha and I took one, while Nora and Ren took the other. Well, Ren took one, and Nora took the sap he collected. Pyrrha and I quickly filled our jars, and I pulled out another one.

"What are you doing?" Pyrrha asked me.

"I'm filling up my second jar." I told her.

"Why are you doing that?"

"Well," I started explaining, "In addition to its medical properties, which is why Professor Peach wants it, this sap is very sweet. That's why Nora is guzzling it down over there." I pointed at the girl in question, who was being chastised by her partner. "Tomorrow I am going to refill my stash of candy, it's running low." I pulled my jar away and closed the tap that I was using. "I'm giving this jar to my guy, and he'll give me some of the candy he makes with it."

"You've done this before?"

"There have been a few camping trips where I smuggled some back. It's not against any rules to take some extra sap." I shrugged. "Do you want some, it's some of the best candy you could ever have. You can come with me if you want."

"Sure I'll just… Behind you!" Pyrrha pointed at something behind me. I turned around and instinctively put my arms in a cross in front of my face. Something glass hit it and shattered. My aura protected me from the glass shards, but something sticky was spread over my arms and a little on my face. I pulled my arms down and looked at them. They were covered in a sticky red liquid. Sap. Crap!

I looked in the direction that the jar came from. I saw Cardin's team and some other kid popping up behind a hill. The kid had two brown ears. Cow ears. That little-

Cardin bumped the kid. Then the kid threw a box at me. It hit the ground right in front of me and busted open, releasing a bunch of large wasps, with very long stingers. Rapier wasps.

I turned around and yelled at my team. "Guys, run!" Because rapier wasps are dangerous. There's some protection you can pretty easily get. But there aren't normally rapier wasps here, so no one brought any. You see, rapier wasps are like Schnees. Because they're animals and not Grimm, they have souls. Somehow, they developed the ability to unlock their aura. Every single one of them has the same semblance. To allow their stingers to bypass a human's aura. It's probably a lot more complicated than that, but I have not done research on that subject. I was really wishing I had at the time when I felt a sting on my back. Which was then followed by a ton of stings on my arms. I have to do something about these. I grabbed my weapon's handle and pulled out the electric blade. I channeled my aura into the blade, and it acted like a bug zapper, which killed all the wasps. I turned back and saw Cardin. That idiot…

"You guys, go get help!" I turned back and started running at team CRDL and the cow faunus.

"Jade, don't!" Pyrrha yelled at me.

"Just get help!" I yelled back, swallowing as I felt a lump in my throat. I got close and saw that Cardin was scared. Though this time, not about me. About the Ursa Major that was kicking his butt. I jumped in and blocked its paw with my sword.

"Jade?" Cardin asked.

"Yeah, you…" I swayed a little bit in place. A rush of dizziness had just washed over me. "Idio-" I was hit by the other paw while my guard was down. I was thrown to the side, and apparently, I was more interesting than Cardin, as the Ursa came after me. I got up. "Oh really, you want to…" I turned around, bent over, and vomited. Then I was hit again. I started blacking out, but I saw some things before.

I heard Pyrrha yell. "No, Jade!" I saw her javelin hit it in the face, and I saw a pink hammer hitting the Ursa in its spikes. Oh yeah, they could just help me. I didn't think of that.

I'm really tired.

* * *

I woke up in one of the school's infirmary's beds. I looked down at my arms. They were completely bandaged up. They didn't spread down my hands. Luckily I hadn't gotten any sting on my hands, though I had gotten a lot on my arms. I looked around my room to see if there was anyone else. I did see someone sitting at the end of my bed. They were sitting on a chair, face down on the bed, with their hair going everywhere. Pyrrha. I nudged her with my foot a few times. She didn't wake up. I nudged her some more. "Pyrrha. Pyrrha." I nudged her a little less gently. "Pyrrha!"

"What?" She lifted her head. "Oh, I'm so sorry Jade! We were taking shifts and I fell asleep."

I cut her off. "It's fine. It's nice to see you guys are so worried about me." I saw her blush. Though it could be from embarrassment or just waking up. "Well, you were in anaphylactic shock. You had just enough aura to keep you alive until we got you some treatment. You could've died."

"So what's happening with Team CRDL?" I asked her.

"Well, CRDL and Eachann have been suspended indefinitely."

"Wait, Eachann?" I looked down. "Oh, was he the cow faunus?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Well, we should get to the dorm room, what time is it?" I looked down at my scroll. "When was your shift supposed to end?"

"Well, we decided that we would take one-hour shifts. But we could do more, so at the end of our shifts, we got the next person from our dorm. Mine was supposed to end at 9."

"Hmm. You have been sleeping for four hours." I showed her the time.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry Jade."

"No really, it's fine." I comforted her. "Let's just get back to the dorm room." I got out of the infirmary bed. "Wait, is it okay for me to leave?"

"Professor Peach said that you will be fine once you wake up." Pyrrha said.

"That's good." I got up and started walking out, but heard something behind me. I turned around and saw that Pyrrha was hunched over, gripping the chair. "Are you okay?" I ran over to her.

"I'm fine. I just got up to fast." She waved me off.

"You're still a little groggy. I did wake you up, you seemed to be sleeping pretty well. Don't worry, I'll help you back." I reached out my hand, and she reluctantly took it. We started walking out, with me supporting her. It's times like these that make me feel better. When I was first here at Beacon I didn't show it, but I was terrified of Pyrrha. But once I've gotten to know her, she's not that scary anymore. I get to see that she isn't perfect.

"You know it's kind of funny, I'm the one who's supporting you, but I'm the one who just got out of the infirmary." I smiled, but she just glared tiredly at me. "Wait!" I stopped us both. "Did you grab my extra jar of sap?"

"Yes, it's waiting for you in our room." She said, obviously a little annoyed.

"Oh, thank you so much. Why don't you come with me tomo- well, I guess later today, to the candy store? I'll split the free candy with you." I smiled over at her.

She stumbled, and I supported her so she wouldn't fall. "That sounds great, I just need some sleep." I see that.

"Okay." I rubbed my eyes with my free left hand. "I might need some more sleep, I don't know. I'll at least try."

* * *

 **Hello everybody! Here is chapter eight, I hope you enjoyed it. With the new character, Eachann, I made a joke with him. I want to see if you can find out what it is.**

 **Anyway, I hope you have a nice day!**


	10. Chapter 9

I opened up the door to a shop named "Blood, Sweets, and Tears". I've always loved its name. "Jade!" A man yelled. He rushed out from behind the counter and hugged me. I tentatively patted him back. I'm not really comfortable hugging people that aren't my family. Or guys.

"Hi, Reese." I awkwardly said, pulling back a little bit,

He stopped and let me go. "So, how is my favorite customer doing?" He asked.

"I'm okay, I've got some new friends. This is my partner Pyrrha." I pointed to the red-haired girl behind me.

"Hello!" She cheerfully said.

"Pyrrha Nikos!" Reese was very taken aback. "Wow, you've chosen a good, uh, 'partner'" He waggled his eyebrows at me. Then he stared at her. "Oh wow, she's even nicer than on the screen."

"Reese!" I said. "Come on, stop ogling my teammate! I got you some sap." I pulled off my backpack and pulled out my jar of sap.

"Oh, hack yes! I'll give you some of the candy from the last batch, hold on." He ran off into the back.

"He's, interesting," Pyrrha told me.

"Yeah, but he makes amazing candy." I shrugged. "I can deal with it. Most of the time at least."

"But then why are there only two other people here?" She asked me.

"Probably because of the name, not many people like the name. Also, Reese, I'm not sure that some people can deal with his person... Oh, hi Reese, how have you been doing?" I whirled around when he walked in.

"Hello, Jade! I got you some Forever Fall candy. And I put a little something extra in for just the two of you." He winked and I slowly took the bag. I think I'm scared of what else is in there. I opened it up and saw a bunch of red hard candy and a…

And a condom.

He put a condom in with my candy.

You know usually, I can just deal with him. He's really good at making candy. But sometimes I hate him with a burning passion. Sometimes, I just hate him so much.

This is one of those times.

I pulled it out, crumpled it up, and put it in my pocket. "Thanks," I said, not actually thanking him.

"Yeah, and I've been doing pretty good. I've got myself a girlfriend." He bragged.

"Oh, really?" I said. I was legitimately surprised. "Good job."

"Yeah, and..." He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. "And I'm not going to kill this one."

"Really, great job! Contain those murderous urges!" I told him. "Oh, by the way, I would like my usual order."

"Ah yes, I'll get that package for you, good sir." He ran around the room, putting candy in a large bag. During all of this I handed one of the sap candies over to Pyrrha, and she was slowly sucking on it. He then ran back over to me and held out the bag. "Your payment?" I handed over some lien. "Thank. Now I must get back to my business. Goodbye." He left us and walked into an office in the back.

"Well, at least he won't bother us anymore," I said.

"Do you not like him?" Pyrrha asked me. "And was he joking about killing his girlfriends?"

"He could be joking. I sure hope he's joking." I shrugged as we headed out of the store. "And he's a nice person most of the time. He's just hard to deal with. Most people are, just him more than usual. I just don't understand him. Do you want to head back to the dorm? We could join team RWBY, they're scouting our opponents under the pretense of welcoming them to Vale."

"Why don't we-"

"Jade!" I heard someone yell from behind me. I turned around and was tackle hugged by a person in all gray.

I pulled her off of me and looked her in the face. "Echo!"

"Yep!" She hopped back a little bit. "I just got here today from Vacuo with the rest of my team."

"Echo! What are you doing?" I heard yells from behind Echo.

"I found a friend!" She yelled back. I started looking to see the other people but was distracted by Pyrrha.

"Who's she?" She asked. She sounded a little weird, I couldn't place why though.

"She's an old friend from Signal. She helped me create my guns." I told her. "She's awesome. Though, just a heads up, she can read minds." Echo reached out and shook Pyrrha's hand

"So you're Jade." I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and saw another girl. She must be from Echo's team, but weren't they far away? She must be pretty fast. She was in what looked like combat gear. Like what army fighters would have. But instead of like a dark green or camo, it was a pure white. Interesting. "We've heard so much about you."

"Oh, good?" I said hesitantly.

"Oh well, you know how Echo can be." Another girl made herself known, my attention quickly turning to her. She was dressed in a green and brown dress. Oh, sorry. It's a combat skirt. "She really didn't have friends, so it was important to her that you were her friend." She leaned in and started talking in a stage whisper. "We're on a team so I can see why."

"Shut up Beryl." A girl in light blue reprimanded her. "Greetings I am Nova Frost." She said turning to me. "Even though Echo's the first letter, I am the team leader."

"Oh, hi, that's kind of weird. I'm Jade Rose. I'm the leader of my team." I reached out and shook her hand.

"This is my team." She said uniformly. She seems a little uptight. I heard a swish behind her, so I leaned to the side to look. "You know Echo Grissel, this is Beryl Brown," She pointed the girl in the combat skirt. Nova has a wolf tail, interesting. "And this is Yolanda White." She pointed to the girl in camo.

"Oh, well I'm Jade Rose. Then this is Pyrrha Nikos." I pointed to my partner.

"Hello."

"My other teammates aren't here, but they're names are Lei Ren and Nora Valkyrie."

"Pyrrha Nikos, impressive. You have a powerful team, Jade Rose. It will be difficult to win against you at the Vytal festival. Good luck." She told me.

I nodded. "Good luck to you too."

"Okay, let's go. I am interested in the local shops. I hear there is a very good candy shop near here." Nova said, starting to walk away.

"Candy, do they have those nib things?" Yolanda started running.

"Yolanda, you don't need caffeine," Beryl yelled after her. "Get back here!"

"You're not even going the wrong way!" Nova yelled with Beryl.

Yolanda started running back. "Why didn't you tell me that?"

I leaned over to Echo, who was laughing. "I'm guessing it must be hard to deal with your team."

She nodded. "Their kind of weird. But they're all nice people."

"Well," Nova paused as Yolanda zoomed past. "We will be going now. We don't want Yolanda to hurt anybody."

"See you, Jade!" Echo yelled before starting to run to catch up to Yolanda.

"Bye Echo!" I yelled back. I turned over to Pyrrha. "So what'd you think of them?"

"They were interesting. Why didn't you ever talk about Echo?" She asked.

This caught me off guard. "Well, it never came up." I hooked my hands behind my head and hung them off my neck. "Why do you ask?"

"They said she talked about you a lot."

"Well, I guess she thinks of me more than I think of her?" I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Okay."

My scroll buzzed into my pocket. I pulled it out and saw a message from Echo. How the crap did she even get my… whatever. "Tell your girlfriend, don't worry I'll leave him alone."

"She's not my…! Ugh." I showed Pyrrha the text.

"What does she mean?"

"She probably read your mind or something. Don't put too much thought into what she said." I pulled out the bag of nibs and tilted it in her direction. "So where do you want to go?"

She took one out and popped it into her mouth. "Let's go find team RWBY."

"Okay," I said. I pulled up a map of the city on my scroll. "They should be… this way." I pointed in the opposite direction of where Echo's team had gone.

"What are the little crunchy bits in there? They taste bitter." Pyrrha asked.

"They're little bits of just straight cocoa." I told her.

"Oh, that's nice."

"Yeah, they're pretty… oh look, there they are. Hey Ruby!" I called over to her. She turned over to me and waved. I waved back. Then a person in a white coat ran by her team. Oh look, there's Sun.

Yang turned to Weiss and said something, but I couldn't hear what it was. Suddenly Weis held up her hand, and they ran after him. Blake stayed back a little bit, before running after them.

"Well, I guess let's catch up to them." I started running with Pyrrha by my side.

We eventually caught up after having to take a few turns. We were only able to track them because Blake was stuck behind with a slow start. We caught up right as Weiss neighed, backing away from Penny, who was on the ground.

"Salutations!" Penny said.

"Um, hello." Ruby said.

"Hi." I said, to everyone. I was telling team RWBY that I arrived, and greeting the android in front of us.

"Are you… okay?" Yang asked her.

"I'm wonderful, thank you for asking me!" She said.

I hid a smile behind my hand, while team RWBY just looked at each other. "Do you… want to get up?" Yang asked.

Penny thought for a second before saying, "Yes." She then did one of those things where you get up by just jumping. It was cool. I was laughing, Penny was so awkward at first. Well, not only at first. But at first, she was really awkward. "My name is Penny, it's a pleasure to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you too!" I said. "I'm Jade Rose!"

"Hi Penny, I'm Ruby."

"I'm Weiss."

"Blake." Wow, they just keep getting shorter.

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head?" Yang asked. Blake hit her, so she said, "Oh, I'm Yang."

"And I'm Pyrrha Nikos."

"It's a pleasure to meet you all!" She said.

"You already said that." Weiss said.

Penny thought for a second again. "So I did!"

"Well, I'm sorry for running into you." Weiss told her.

"Take care, friend." Ruby said, waving as we all turned to walk away.

"She was… weird." Yang said.

"So, I'm weird." I said.

"Yeah, but you're my brother. I understand you. I couldn't understand her." Yang explained.

"Yes, well where did that faunus riffraff run off too?" Weiss asked. I saw that Blake! I saw that dirty look!

Suddenly Penny was in front of us. Is she always combat ready? "What did you call me?" She asked.

While Weiss was staring in disbelief, her head whipping back and forth between where Penny was and where she currently is, Yang apologized., "Oh, I'm really sorry, I definitely didn't think you heard me."

"No, not you." Penny walked through the group, parting the sea, then said. "You!"

"Me?!" Ruby asked. "I-I don't know, I-I, what I- um, uh." She stammered, being scared of the invasion of personal space. Penny was very close, leaning over Ruby, who was leaning back.

"You called me 'friend.' Am I really your friend?" Penny asked.

"Umm." Ruby paused, looking behind Penny. Everyone else in team RWBY was shaking their head and waving their arms no. She met eyes, and I nodded once, smiling.

"Ya, sure! Why not?" Weiss, Blake, and Yang all just died. Their eyes went wide and they fell over from their shock. I laughed once before shoving the back of my hand into my mouth to muffle them. While I was giggling into my hand, I looked over at Pyrrha, who had that small smile she gets on her face.

Penny also laughed and said. "Sen-sational!" She said, prolonging the first syllable. "We can paint our nails, and try on clothes, and talk about cute boys!" She was very excited. Very excited. Luckily she becomes more bearable later on. Did her creator, like fine-tune her emotions as the show went on?

"Ooh," Ruby groaned. "Was this what it was like when you first met me?" she asked Weiss as said girl got up from the ground.

"No, she seems far more coordinated." Weiss told her. I beg to differ.

"So what are you doing in Vale?" Yang asked her.

"I'm here to fight in the tournament." Penny told her.

"Wait, you're fighting in the tournament?" Yes Weiss, that's what she just said!

"Yep, I'm combat ready!" She is always combat ready! I knew it!  
"Forgive me, but you hardly look the part." Weiss told her.

I leaned over to Pyrrha, blocking out the other conversation. "Does she look like someone who would fight in a tournament?" I asked her.

"Well, she has a pretty interesting outfit. I could see her in a tournament."

"I don't really have an interesting outfit. Could you see me in a tournament?"

She thought for a second. "No, not really. We might have to change that."

"Please don't." I then started to pay attention to the conversation between team RWBY and Penny.

Blake growled. "You ignorant little brat!" She yelled at Weiss. That's a nice place to start paying attention. Blake then started walking away.

"How dare you talk to me like that! I am your teammate!" Weiss yelled back, starting to walk after her.

"You are a judgemental little girl!" Blake told her, as Weiss got to where Blake had stopped.

"Um, I think we're just going to go." I told Yang.

"Sorry." Pyrrha told my sisters.

We then walked away. "Yeah, I guess that was a bad idea. I'm sorry about that."

"It's okay. I thought it was a good idea too." She put a hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eyes, and smiled. "It's fine. You couldn't have known that would happen."

Actually, I totally could have. But I forgot. I thought that particular argument happened later in the show. But the reassurance still felt nice. "Thanks." And I smiled back.

 **And here's the last chapter before school starts. Probably, unless I squeeze one out super fast. And once school starts it will probably take me a lot longer because of my schedule this year. Though it's taken a while for these too, because of all the different things I've been doing. Sorry about that.**

 **Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter, and have a wonderful day!**


	11. Chapter 10

I sat down with my team. "Okay. So yesterday we didn't cover much ground. So I think today, we should split up. That way we'll be able to cover more ground and hopefully find her faster." After a quick agreement from all three of my teammates, I clapped. "Awesome. I'll see you guys later." We each went in different directions from the intersection we were all standing in. I pulled out my map once I was a pretty good distance away from them. I looked at the different places I marked on it. They were all the cafes in the city. I just have to find one with a terrace outside. One with two faunus on it.

In between the third and fourth cafe I had a thought. Where did Blake and Sun stay overnight? I'm guessing not in the dorms, someone should have noticed them there. Did they rent a hotel room? Two hotel rooms maybe, one would be super weird. Surely they didn't sleep in an alleyway.

I continued thinking about this, and in between the fourth and fifth cafe, I had an idea. What if they squatted in someone else's house? I think Sun would be okay with that, but I doubt Blake would just go along with that. Though of course, Sun could just have a friend in Vale that they stayed with. That explanation makes the most sense.

After the eighth cafe, I decided something. I don't like this. The cafes aren't exactly close, and it's hot. So what I'm doing, is getting a nice ice cold lemonade, and heading down to the docks, where I know they'll be later.

So after getting a lemonade from the ninth cafe, which was on the way, I headed down to the docks. I was sitting down in what would have been the thirteenth cafe, it was right next to docks. That's when I decided to pull out my phone. My scroll, sorry old habits. Something was bothering me. It had been bothering me for a while, but now seemed like a nice time. I pulled open my messages and looked at my conversation between me and Echo. This is something that should not exist. I never gave her my number, and she didn't give me hers. I looked up at the texts before what she sent me before, and me trying to get more information out of her. Then I saw something I hadn't noticed before. " _Hey Echo, here's Jade's number! (=ඔᆽඔ=)_ " What? What the crap? Who sent this and how did they get access to my scroll? Did one of her friends hack it? The text was sent during our conversation. So it must not have been her teammates. Or maybe it was some other method.

I shook my head and decided to change what I was thinking about. I decided to move on to the text she actually sent. Afterwards, she replied to what I said with stupid stuff that gave me no information. I frowned at what she said. She wouldn't touch me, what does that mean? That we wouldn't fight? But what if we got matched up? Like, in the Vytal festival. Does that mean that she would target other people on my team? That's weird. But why would she bring that up?

Of course, she could mean that… romantically? I smiled and laughed a bit. No that wouldn't work. Because that would require Pyrrha to think of me like that. And I'm not that lucky. But you know…

An alarm went off on my scroll, jerking me out of my thoughts. Well, time flies when you're… my eyes went back to gold. But what were they before? I didn't recognize that feeling. That was weird.

But whatever. Let's go. I left some lien on the table because I took up a table, so they lost some service. Then I started walking down to the docks. I tried looking around for Blake and Sun but didn't see them. I waited around for a while, playing a game on my scroll, and occasionally looking up to see if anyone arrived. And no one did. Eventually, some White Fang members showed up. It looked like they were scouts. They started spreading out, making a perimeter. So I backed off a little bit.

Eventually, Blake and Sun showed up, so I pulled out my scroll. I found my group chat with the rest of my team. I mostly ignore this, as Nora is very good at finding weird pictures of cats on the internet. Not even normal cute pictures, like weirdly edited cats. I need my sleep, so I don't look at them. I sent out a message. " _Hey everyone, I found Blake. We're over by the docks. Well, she doesn't know I'm here. But she's at the docks. Might need help_."

" _On my way._ " Pyrrha said.

" _I'm coming over._ " Ren told everyone.

" _Where are the docks?_ "

" _Where are you, Nora?_ "

 _"I'm by this weird candy shop, Blood Sweets and Tears._ "

" _I know where that is!_ " I interjected. " _It's right by The Codfather._ "

" _Okay, well…_ " Ren started giving Nora instructions, so I put my scroll away. I looked up to see two bullheads landing. There's Roman. They landed, and some White Fang members exited the flying crafts. They started getting everything ready. Then two people walked out. One was who I expected, Roman Torchwick, who was yelling at the White Fang to hurry up. But the other person was someone new. They had on some futuristic looking white armor on, with two slightly curved things on her back. They were long, reaching from above her head down to around her thighs.

Blake jumped down and held her blade to Roman's throat. "Nobody move!" She threw off her bow and yelled at the White Fang. "Brothers of the White Fang! Why are you aiding this scum?"

Roman laughed at her. "Oh kid, didn't you get the memo?"

"What are you talking about?" Blake yelled at him.

"The White Fang and I are going in on a joint business venture together."

"Tell me what it is or I'll end your little business venture." Blake pressed her blade harder on Roman's throat.

"I would advise you to move away from Mister Roman." The mystery girl finally spoke.

"Why?" Blake asked.

The girl smirked. "Because our business isn't very little." Several more bullheads flew overhead. I'm glad I messaged Pyrrha, I think I'll need her help. Then an explosion went off, and Blake went flying. I started running over then. Roman sent some more shots after Blake, before Sun distracted him, by jumping on his face and slamming his head into the ground. The girl moved forward to stop him, but I shot at her with my left gun, making a small patch of ice on her torso. She turned to look at me and smiled. "Interesting." She threw her arms out, making them go straight. Then the things on her back shot out down her arms, stopping at her wrists. Then they rotated around so they were on the inside. She grabbed them, and they transformed. They transformed into double swords.

Okay, so I know we're enemies and all, but that was really cool. It might not have sounded cool, but in person, it was awesome. I switched both of my guns to constant mode and spun the dust to ice. I fired continuous lasers, to try and slow her movements. But her armor protected her and she was strong enough to break off the ice. I switched tactics and spun my left gun to turn it into a dagger. I changed my right gun into burst mode and spun the dust revolver. I fired a bunch of shots, with steam erupting from where each laser hit. I ran into the smokescreen I created. I stabbed her with my dagger. This caused a direct current to run through her armor. Sadly, this didn't cause paralysis, the armor must have distributed it too much. But it did hurt, I could tell. She winced, and then got mad. She kicked me, pushing me back. She then swung one of her double swords at me. I tried to block with my dagger, but her sword passed through it. It hit me in the head, and I was knocked to the ground. I bounced up in the other direction, to get some range. She started spinning her swords. I couldn't tell what she was doing, but it didn't look natural. Maybe it has something to with her semblance? I holstered my guns and drew a sword. Then I grabbed my extra hilt and drew another sword. In my right hand I had a dark purple sword, and in my left, I had my brown blade, which is earth. Perfect, I got what I wanted. I sliced upwards with the earth blade, warping the ground into spikes, arcing towards her. I then ran to the left **right**. She walked between the spikes, still spinning her swords, then ran **at me**. She sliced through **me**.

"What the crap?" She muttered under her breath. I then channeled my aura into my sword and sent a sword beam at her. It hit her sword, and her sword jumped up a few feet, flying out of her hands. She turned and looked at me. "Oh," She said in disgust. "You're like Emerald."

"Emerald?" I acted confused.

"Yeah, she's just some…" She dashed at me suddenly, tackling me to the ground. "I'll know where you are if I'm touching you." She then pressed a sword against my throat, a small cut forming, with her other hand holding my wrist in a death grip. I must be out of aura. "Surrender." A gunshot rang out. "Hah, you won't distract me with…" She was thrown off of me. I looked to where it came from and saw Pyrrha. Ren and Nora should be here soon.

"Thanks!" I yelled at her.

"Frost! Get over here!" I heard Roman yell.

I looked over and Penny was just destroying everything, tearing bullheads apart left and right. Roman was about to escape. The girl, Frost I guess, looked back at me. Her eyes flitted down and back at me. She picked up Pyrrha's javelin, which is what must have hit her, and threw it at me, before running away. I started to get up, but then the blade glowed black and stuck into the ground. I sighed in relief and got up.

Pyrrha ran up and hugged me. "I'm so glad you're safe!"

I hugged her back. "Thank you so much for saving me, that could've been bad." I suddenly realized the position I was in. I jumped back. "Sorry!" I looked down at the ground, scratching my neck. "I just- that could've been bad. I was out of aura." I lifted my head up to show her the cut on my neck, looking to the side, not meeting her eyes. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." I met her eyes and she smiled.

"Well," I looked over at Ruby and Blake. "Looks like Blake's safe. Do you think we should go back?"

"Yeah." She looked around. "Did Nora and Ren ever get here?"

"I don't think so."

"Jade!" I heard Nora yell.

I smiled. "I stand corrected. Hi Nora!"

"Hi!" She ran up with Ren in tow.

"Sorry Nora, but we're done." I gave her an apologetic smile. "We found Blake and fought off some White Fang. Along with Roman and some weird girl."

"Aww, I wanted to help." Nora told us.

"It's okay Nora. Next time something like this happens, I'll make sure you can take someone out. Is that okay?" I asked her.

"Sure!" She immediately perked up.

Ok, well, let's head back to the dorms." I said. I patted her on the shoulder as I caught up to her while we started walking back.

* * *

The next day everyone was called into an assembly. Ozpin walked up to the mike and began addressing us. "Hello, students. I regret to inform you that we have been forced to expel five of our students. Because of the attempt on another students life, Team CRDL and Eachann have been expelled from Beacon Academy. Even if it was meant as a prank or some harmless fun, it could have killed them. Do not try and copy what they have done. We are here to learn to fight evil, not each other. We are here to work together, not against each other. We are here to learn. Do not fight each other, make friends not enemies. Work together, learn together, and fight together. I hope that you will be able to learn from their mistakes, good day."

Holy crap. I did not expect that. I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this.

Though, I mean, it makes sense. They did nearly kill me with those rapier wasps. I feel bad for the cow faunus though. He was probably forced into it but didn't stand up to them like Jaune did. That makes me sad. Maybe I can do something to make it up for him. But that would require me to actually run into him. That probably won't happen, so I won't worry about it.

 **Hey everyone, here's the tenth chapter! I hope you enjoyed it! School seems like it's going to be a big load this year, so I'm sorry if I can't upload regularly. I'm also sorry about making excuses. I don't want you to feel sorry for me, I'm just explaining.**

 **Also, side note here, I'm only ten chapters in and this is already over half the length of TtJRS! I'm pretty excited about this, I feel like this is going very well.**

 **Well, I hope you have a good day!**


	12. Chapter 11

I slowly woke up in my room. I looked around and didn't see anyone. I must have overslept. I did stay up very late last night looking up stupid stuff on the internet. After doing that for a while, I usually sleep through everyone else waking up. Even Nora somehow. I threw on my uniform and started walking to the cafeteria. It was a very nice day outside. I was kind of sad that the break was nearly over. But, school isn't actually as bad here. Fighting helps, it's a nice… there's a word for this. It's a specific word. I'll remember it later I guess.

I rubbed my eyes as I walked by some trees. I was still a little groggy from just waking up. I was wondering what to have for breakfast, they actually have a good spread here. It's probably all that government funding. I heard a loud crash from inside the cafeteria. What the crap? I quickly jogged over to the doors and opened them up. I peeked around Sun and Neptune, and saw my teammates getting slammed against the wall. Then Ruby jumped out of the way, and a cyclone of food and soda slammed into my teammates. "I love these guys." Sun said. Neptune just looked over at him angrily, as he was covered in some purple soda.

"Well," I said. "I guess I'll have to get revenge for my fallen teammates." I yawned and picked up two loaves of french bread. "Ruby!" I yelled. "Get over here, I want to fight you for the honor of my fallen friends or something like that, I don't know!" I yelled, trailing off at the end. She ran up with her semblance, and I had to dodge an attack from her. Then I… Catharsis! That's the word! That's the word I was thinking of.

Then I stepped around to behind her and hit her with my bread. This is probably going to be pretty easy. She doesn't have her "sweetheart" and isn't very good at hand-to-hand combat. Also, I'm at full aura, and she is not. She stumbled and I hit her in the back of her knee. Then she started falling before catching herself and sprinting off. I saw her picking up Blake and then running over to Weiss. Crap!

Blake smirked and picked up a long link of sausages. I then hit the ground with my foot, and hit a tray into the air. I then hit it with my sword, which deflected the links that were flying at me. I then ran towards Blake. I jumped over ketchup that Weiss had shot at me. I had to keep glancing down at the ground so I didn't step on something I didn't want to. I had to deflect and dodge some more attacks, but there was something I didn't think of.

I was randomly, out of the blue, flattened to the ground. I heard someone groan above me. "Fine." I said. "You guys win, you win. Now please get off of me Yang." I had forgotten that, during the food fight, Yang was sent flying through the roof, and she just fell back down. "Get off!" I said, once Yang didn't. I shoved her off of me, and got up, brushing my uniform off.

Suddenly Glynda burst through the doors. She waved her riding crop and everything started flying around. We've seen her in battle, but this is probably the biggest show of her power. Everything went back into place. One table bounced along the other ones. Wouldn't it be easier to put it in a closer place? That seems like a bit much. "Children please. Do not play with your food." I stifled a laugh. Because that was really bad.

I got up and the rest of my team limped over to me. We all sat down at one table while team RWBY sat on the other side. Nora suddenly belched, and we all turned to her. I glanced over at Glynda, who was very mad. Ozpin came up beside her and I pretended not to listen in. Both teams were laughing and joking and I laughed along with them. But I was paying attention to Glynda and Ozpin.

"Let it go." Ozpin told her.

She sighed in exasperation. "But they're supposed to be the defenders of the world."

"And they will be, but right now they're still children. So why not let them play the part?" He turned and started walking away. "It's not a role that they'll have forever." Knowing what happens at the Vytal festival, that is true.

Glynda closed her eyes as Ozpin walked away. She sighed, and opened them again. She flicked her riding crop again, and repaired the hole in the roof, along with the pillar that had fallen. "Okay children, you will finish cleaning up. Take out the trash, wipe down the tables and floors. Then you should be done." She turned and started to storm away. "You two will be joining them." She told Sun and Neptune. They glared at us. I have a feeling they aren't going to be much help. Hopefully we still have enough time for games later.

* * *

I sipped on my milkshake while Ruby hmmed. "The dinosaurs were wiped out, the glaciers receded, and Ruby actually did something on her stupid turn!"

Crap, Remnant has a different natural history! "It's just something stupid from a show I watched a while ago." I waved my hand. "It doesn't matter. Ruby, go!"

"Fine. Jade Rose, prepare your kingdom for battle!"

"If it makes you do something then I'm prepared for me and my citizens to make that sacrifice." I groaned.

"What does that even mean?" Weiss asked.

"I deploy the Atlesian Air Fleet! Looks like I get to fly right over your minefields, and attack your walls directly!" She made airplane noises, flying around her hands.

"Yeah, that seems about right. What else?"

"And, since Atlas is part of Mantel, my repair time only lasts… one turn."

"Yep," I nodded. "You've used this strategy many times Ruby, I know." I yawned. "I also know how to counter it. I active SAM missile, and because it's my opponent's turn, it does 13 damage to your air fleet, easily enough to destroy them." I showed her the card, then put it in my graveyard, along with a supply card from my hand to activate its effect.

"Nooo! My fearless soldiers!" She yelled.

"Yes, it's such a tragedy, please end your turn, this game has been going on for _hours_." I groaned, drawing two cards from my deck and one from Ruby's hand as my rewards.

"Nooo." Ruby cried.

"Whatever, Weiss, it's your turn." I told the heiress.

"I have… Absolutely no idea what's going on." Weiss said. I sighed and gestured to Yang. I already explained three times, I was done.

"Look, it's easy! You're playing as Vacuo which means all Vacuo based cards come with a bonus." Yang told her.

"That sounds dumb." Weiss said.

"You sound dumb." I mumbled.

"See… You've got Sandstorm, Desert Scavenger, oh-oh! Resourceful Raider." Yang said, rearranging Weiss's cards. That's actually not a bad combo. "See, now you can take Ruby's discarded air fleet," I heard a small groan from Ruby, "and put it in your hand!"

"Okay…"

"And since Vacuo warriors have an endurance boost against natural disasters, you can use Sandstorm to disable my ground forces and simultaneously infiltrate my kingdom!" This is actually true, but obviously Yang has something up her sleeve. You don't help someone in games like this for free if you don't get anything out of it. "Just know, that I will not forget this declaration of war." Nice job trying to save it there.

"And that means…?" Weiss asked.

"You're just three moves away from conquering Remnant." Ruby cried.

Weiss' face lit up, and she started laughing maniacally. She set down her cards and stood up. "Yes! Fear the almighty power of my forces. Cower as they pillage your homes and weep as they take your children from your very arms!"

"Trap card." Yang showed her.

"Huh?"

Yang rearranged the figurines on the board. "Your armies have been destroyed."

Weiss sat down and started crying. "I hate this game of emotions we play."

"Stay strong Weiss, we'll make it through this together." Ruby latched on to her partner.

"Shut up, don't touch me!" Weiss said, pulling her closer.

"Trap card," I told my older sister. "I discard my whole hand doing three damage for each army you destroyed. Using this, I destroy your naval fleet, these forces, your huntress over here, and half of your walls."

"No!" Yang yelled out. Then I was the only one left in the game not crying. I get getting into a game, but not to that extent.

"Yang, please just take your last turn."

"Sup losers?" I heard a voice behind me.

"Hey, Sun!" Ruby said, quickly getting out of her depression.

"Ruby, Jade, Yang, Blake," Blake gave a small wave from the side where she was reading a book. "Ice Queen."

"Why does everyone keep calling me that?"

"I never got a chance to formally introduce you to my old friend." He told us.

"Uh, aren't libraries for reading?" Neptune asked.

"Thank you!" Ren yelled from over at the other table.

"Pancakes!" Nora snorted.

"Shut up don't be a nerd." Sun told him.

"G-g-g-g-g, intellectual, okay? Thank you." Neptune told him.

"Also, we've been playing a board game for, about, three hours now. Why would he be the nerd?" I asked.

"Whatever." Sun said.

"I'm Neptune by the way." Neptune said.

"So Neptune, where are you from?" Weiss asked.

"Haven…" He walked over to Weiss. "And I don't believe I've caught your name… snow angel."

"It's Ice Queen." I said under my breath.

"Um… I'm Weiss." She told him. Everyone was paying attention to them, so I slipped a few cards into my lap.

"Pleasure to meet you." Neptune told her.

"It is." She said.

"Nice to meet you Neptune, now Yang, it's your turn." I waved my empty hand at Yang.

Yang started her turn while I heard Sun and Blake chatting in the corner. I didn't really pay attention to what they were saying. Despite me crippling myself with that move against Yang, I think I have a chance to win. Very slim, but there's a chance. Because Yang was the biggest threat, but now she's been crippled too.

* * *

I put my deck of cards away, as my heart was beating super fast. It happens sometimes when I get excited and really invested in a game."Well, that kind of sucked," I said. "Once it came down to a die roll, I knew I'd lost." I sighed. "Randomness hates me."

"Oh, your just mad that the new player beat you." Yang clapped me on the back.

"New players. Weiss got help from Neptune, that's totally cheating." I said.

"Those are just excuses, you lost fair and square."

"Fair." I shrugged. "Maybe not square." I headed over to my dorm room. I was going to relax the rest of today. Tomorrow, I'm going to train with Pyrrha, I need to conserve my energy. It really won't make a difference, but I'm still kind of lazy.

* * *

I deflected a punch with my forearm. I stepped forward and tried to hit back. She grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. Pyrrha stuck her leg out and flipped me over her shoulder. I hit the ground pretty hard.

"Oh, sorry! Are you okay?"

"Oh yeah," I said. She reached down with her hand, and I took it. "I'm fine." She pulled and helped me up. "Though, can we take a break?" I asked.

"Sure." She said. We sat down together and pulled out water bottles.

"Thank you so much for helping me again," I told her. "I'm sorry I haven't gotten much better."

"It's no problem. I'm actually proud of you. You've gotten a lot better, even if you can't tell." She gave me a comforting pat on my shoulder. "It's fine."

"Thanks. Well…" Suddenly music started playing from my phone.

"Red like roses fills my dreams…"

"Oop, sorry that's mine." I rolled to the side and jumped up. I went over to my scroll.

"... and brings me to the…" I picked up the scroll.

"Ugh, it's another random number." I sighed. "Might as well, I guess." I pressed the button to answer. "What do you want?"

"Hey, Jade!" I recognized Sun's voice. "We need help!"

"Oh, hi Sun! What's wrong?"

"There's these two giant robot's we're fighting!" Wait, two? That's not right!

"I'm guessing you need help?" I smiled.

"Yes, of course!"

"Well, I guess I could help you out. If you really need it. Just send me your location."

"Okay, I'll send them to you. Thanks." He hung up. I then got a text with their coordinates. I put them in my map, and they're on some street. Makes sense, from what I remembered. "Team RWBY, Sun, and Neptune got into a fight with some big robots. I'm guessing it has something to do with Torchwick. I'm going to go help, want to join?"

"Sure!" She said. I walked over and helped her up.

"I guess we should go grab Nora. She'll probably destroy a bed if we leave her out of this one." We headed over to the dorm room. I knocked on the door. "Hey Nora, Ren. We're fighting giant robots, want to join?" The door was immediately thrown open.

"Where?" Nora asked.

"Follow me, we'll get a cab!" I turned around and started walking towards the exit. I glanced behind me and saw Nora dragging along a protesting Ren. I smiled a little bit to myself. That's nice. Them together, not her forcing him along.


	13. Chapter 12

The cab driver stopped. "I'm sorry, it's all blocked off. This is as far as I'm going."

"It's fine, here you go." I handed him some lien. I'm probably going to get some from Sun, that was supposed to be for candy. We all squeezed out of the back seat. He wouldn't let one of us sit in the front. I saw that there was a bunch of cars haphazardly thrown to the side. This must have been from where the mechs ran through.

I tapped on the driver's side window. He rolled it down. "Hey, so there are some enemies ahead. We'll take care of them. But I need you to help too. Could you call the authorities, and get other people to help you. There are people stuck in those cars. They need your help. Can you help them?"

He smiled. "I'm the one getting pep-talked by the kid. Oh, how the tables have turned." He then nodded. "I'll help them. And I'll get the cops and some of my friends. Don't worry about us." He said, giving me a small salute.

"Thank you." I told him.

I saw him get out of the car, calling someone while heading to the nearest crashed car. We started running to make sure no one else will be hurt. Eventually, we caught up with team RWBY, who was holding off two large robots. "Let's help them out." We ran to one of the robots. I pulled out my guns and started constantly firing a fire laser at it. It turned from RWBY to us. I saw Ren and Pyrrha firing at it too. This isn't working.

I could tell. Want to know why? The robot shot me, and the explosion sent me flying back. "Stupid buttface!" I yelled as I sat back up. "Screw you and screw your mother for creating you!" I picked up one of my guns, the other was farther away. I checked the dust in the gun. Crap, I need the other one! I scrambled over to the my other gun. "Thunderstrike!" I yelled. I tossed my weapon over to Nora in its knife form. She winced as she stabbed herself with the dagger, but then I saw lightning moving through her aura. She ran at the robot, but then it's arm unfolded. It hit her with a hard right hook, and she was thrown to the side. "No! Crap!" I ran at the robot. "Gentle fists!" Ren joined me and we dodged another fist, each on either side.

"There!" He gestured to the elbow joint.

"Yes!" I quickly yelled. We both slammed our hands onto the joint, warping it using our aura. Sadly it was too strong to be broken. Our attack was really just a concentrated version of what I used on Cardin before.

Then it shot us again, and we both were blown apart from the explosion. My eyes started glowing red. "Heaven's Fall!"

"Got it!" Pyrrha threw her javelin, with a gunshot, and it stuck in the robot, I need to figure out a better word for that. She then launched Nora in the air using her shield. Nora started flying down, ready to hit the javelin, but then the… exoskeleton? That sounds about right. Well, it swung its fist up at her again. This time, though, Nora was ready. She swung her hammer down and hit the arm. She pushed off, and now both arms were damaged.

The mech, yeah, that's the best word for it. At least, it's the best I've come up with so far. Well, the mech raised its arms and I heard the joints creaking. "We can target those joints. They're damaged so we can destroy them easily. Swarm! And Nora, create an opening so Pyrrha can get her javelin back."

I ran at the mech with Ren by me. We dodged the fist, and I scooped up my discarded weapon from earlier. We both started firing at the joint. I used fire dust in both guns to weaken the joint. Eventually, then fist slammed down. It clipped my shoulder, and I was thrown to the ground. But, the joint broke when it hit the ground, so there's a silver lining I guess. I looked over as Pyrrha threw her javelin into the other joint. Then Nora swung her hammer and hit the javelin which was sticking out of the joint, which destroyed its other arm.

I quickly put my guns into their holsters. "Shield!" I yelled. I ran over to Pyrrha and she crouched down as she did with Nora. I jumped up and crouched down on her raised shield. The I sprung off, with her pushing up on the shield. I pulled out my fire dust sword and stabbed into the large mech. The hatch then flew open, nearly throwing me off. I saw a white form jump out of it. Then the mech fell back, and I jumped off. I looked and saw who it was. That little…

I ran to her. Pyrrha and the girl were already fighting each other, each being able to dodge the other's blows. I got up close behind her, and she must have heard me, so she twisted around and deflected my sword with her own, which then spun around me and hit me in the face. I lashed out with my fist, but then Pyrrha's head exploded and she was knocked down to the ground. "Pyrrha!" I yelled.

"Frost! Get your butt over here!" That sounds like Roman.

She punched me in the face while I was distracted. "You always ruin my fun!" She complained, running away.

"Ow, stupid little…" I murmured.

Frost stood behind Roman with Neo. "Ladies, Ice Queen, you guys…" He said the last thing while waving a hand dismissively at me and my team. I snapped a picture of them once I could, making sure to get "Frost's" face. She looks familiar, and I do want to know more about her. She's an unknown right now, as she wasn't in the original.

"Hey!" Weiss yelled.

"Always a pleasure." He tipped his fedora. Heh. *Tips fedora* Always a pleasure, m'lady. "Neo, if you would." Neo waved her arm while crouching down. Then she froze in place.

We all just kind of stood there, expecting something more. Eventually, Yang rushed forward and tried to punch Neo, but she just shattered the illusion that Neo had set up. We all looked and saw the three of them flying away in a bullhead.

"So I guess he got a new henchman." Yang said.

"Wouldn't it be a henchwoman?" Ren asked.

"Yeah, I guess she really made her plans… fall apart?" Weiss asked.

Nora booed at her as Ribby giggled a little bit. "No, just no." Yang told her. Blake just gave up and started walking away.

"What? But you do it!" Weiss protested.

"Weiss, there's a time and a place for jokes." Yang told her.

"Was this not it?"

"No, it just wasn't very good." Yang told her. She's not wrong.

"Well, at least I'm trying."

"Try harder!"

"Shut up Jade!"

I shrugged. "Well, I guess we should go now." I looked off into the scattered cars in the distance. "We should go help them. "

"But will we be able to help? By now, they should have people on the scene." Ren.

"Well, we should at least check."I said.

We walked back to where we were before. Many cars were lined up. There were two people who were clearing out the cars. One person was moving them with their mind, and the other seemed to have super strength. He was able to rip off the car doors and uncrumple flattened cars. He's like... what were they called? Oh yeah, the Jaws of Life.

There was one woman who had their hands over a person, and that person was in a cocoon of dark purple light. There was a guy standing beside her, who, when he noticed us, walked briskly over to us. "I'm sorry," he said. "You'll need to get out of here, you could get hurt."

"I'm sorry sir, but we're hunters and huntresses in training, is there anything we can do to help?" I asked him.

"Well, you can help by staying out of our way." He said. "We have this under control."

"Can't we help in any other way?" Pyrrha asked.

"I'm sorry. But this is our job. You don't have to do anything." He sighed. "I heard from Ash what you were doing. You kids are brave, and you work hard. Go home. Sleep."

"But how do you have this under control?" I asked him. I pointed to the two guys. "There are very few people here."

"We were the only ones up this late at night. There are people on their way and others who are being woken up." He put a hand on my shoulder. You just were in a fight. Your aura's probably low. You'll just get in the way and you could easily hurt yourself. Sleep. It's getting late."

"Yeah," the woman, who had remained silent until now, said. "Just get out of here. You guys have done enough already."

"Violet..." The man started.

"No, you're right. They should just leave. They've already done enough damage here, these children need to go home."

I stepped forward, but Pyrrha rested a hand on my shoulder. "It's okay, let's just go back. We're all tired."

I groaned. "Okay, fine, let's do that."

"Awesome, let's get back." She patted my shoulder.

"Yay!" Nora said. "But let's stop for coffee first!" I sighed, shaking my head. "What about pancakes? Chocolates? Ice cream?"  
"Aren't you tired?" I asked.

"I won't be if I have some sugar." Nora said. We all started walking then.

"You also won't be tired if you sleep," Ren told her. "Come on, let's go home." Oh, that's right. They're orphans, aren't they? It's our home, and… we're like family to them. That's kind of sad.

I was also thinking about what that woman had said. We had done a lot of damage. I used to joke about collateral damage, and no one talking about how many people Superman probably killed going through all those buildings. But now it's real. Everything is real now. There are people that both Team RWBY and us hurt tonight. And we just wanted to help. But I guess that's not always enough.

"Jade? Are you okay?" I turned and saw Pyrrha, who looked concerned.

"Yeah, I was just... just spacing out. I'm kind of tired, sorry." I said, not able to keep what I was thinking about out of my voice.

"Well, I'm here for you, if you need to talk about anything."

That brought a small smile to my face. "Thank you. Thank you, Pyrrha.

* * *

I pulled out my scroll and a cord, connecting my mobile device to the computer. I then pulled up a useful site that Dad had shown us a few years back. Now that I'm a hunter in training, I'm able to use it. I don't have everything that Dad does, but it's still useful. I proceeded to use my picture of the criminal's face and search the Remnant equivalent of the internet. This will allow me to find everything on the "internet" that has her face on it. I leaned back while it was loading. For some reason, the speed here is even worse then Windstream was back on Earth. And that used to go out when we got a phone call.

I thought back to the criminal girl we were fighting. She looked familiar. She kind of looked liked that other girl from Echo's team. I think her last name was Frost too. But that's weak. And he calls Neo by her first name. Maybe her first name is Frost. Though, it certainly sounds like a last name. It sounds like a last name I've heard recently. I heard a bing from my computer. I straightened up to look at it. The first thing that came up was a school profile. That's kind of weird. I clicked on it to see the full thing. The name came up. Nova Frost. She's part of Team EBNY. That's Echo's team. I thought she looked like that person from her team. I scrolled down. Sometimes there are some details at the bottom about their past, I remember Dad showing us what they had about his I read what it said. "I'm sorry, you don't have enough clearance to see this." That's a weird way to say it. Is this some secret organization? That kind of sucks, and is potentially bad. If they have more people undercover like Emerald and Mercury... That's not okay. I'm really don't know what to do with this.

I'll have to think about what to do with this, I'll get something more. The next thing that came was a video. Ugh, that'll take a really long time to load, but I clicked on it anyway. While it was loading my scroll went off. I looked over at it and saw that the next class is starting soon, it's a combat class. The people from the other schools have been joining in with our classes, so this should be interesting. I disappointedly closed the tab and logged off the computer. I guess it will be nice to see fights, instead of fighting them.

* * *

I unwrapped the mint and popped it into my mouth. "Today, you will have the experience of fighting against the unknown. Not just in the Tournament, but once you graduate, you might face something that you cannot anticipate. So we will pit two teams from different schools against each other to spar. Now, team EBNY, could you please get ready?" I looked over and saw that Echo's team was here. I didn't notice them before, huh. "Now, Nova, who do you want to spar with."

She pretended to think for a minute. "How about Team JNPR?"

I turned to my teammates. Nora was smiling and nodding viciously. Well, I fear for what would happen to me in my sleep if I didn't accept, so I shrugged. "Sure, why not?" We each went to our respective locker rooms and changed. We then faced each other on the arena.

"Okay, don't let Echo touch you. She'll be able to hear your thoughts, and anticipate what you're about to do." We got ready.

"Now, fight!"

Team EBNY linked hands, and then… then their eyes glowed gold. That's kind of creepy. The three of them split up. Wait three? That's not… whatever. I pulled out my gun and spun it into knife form. I then stabbed Nora. "Go!" She dashed forward, but then crumpled to the ground. She had been stabbed in the leg by Beryl. What the crap, where'd she come from? "Ren! On her!" Ren ran after her. Pyrrha ran forward and held up her shield, blocking a large arrow that was about to hit him. I looked and saw Nova holding up a bow. She doesn't have the same weapon. But she could just be using two different weapons. It'd help to... I need to focus on the fight.

I pulled out my other gun, and also spun it to knife form. I ran at Beryl… wait, where did she go? I can't… I hate her! My eyes turned red, and I ran at Echo. I saw out of the corner of my eye Pyrrha running for Nova, Ren was shooting at Beryl, and Nora was breaking up the ice on her legs. Then Yolanda hit me in the face out of nowhere. She had little rockets all over her body, which propelled her forward. I then grabbed her arm and flipped her onto the ground. Those rocket pad things, I don't know what to call them really, are kind of a double-edged sword.

Yolanda's rocket-propelled leg kicked mine out from under me. I came down and stabbed her with my knife. She froze up from the electricity, and I jumped away in the time it gave me. I then spun my knives into guns and fired at Yolanda, freezing her to the floor. I then yelled at Nora. "Hit her!" She pushed Nova off of herself and ran to Yolanda.

I ran to help her. I slid on the ground with my leg, shooting Yolanda a few times to make sure, then holstered my guns. I ran into Echo, who was coming to help her teammate. I blocked her, but then crumpled to the ground. There was a sharp pain in my right shoulder, and my muscles were seizing up. I reached back and pulled out a knife that was colored yellow. I turned around and saw someone. Who… Beryl! It's her! Oh my gosh! Her semblance, whatever it is, is very annoying! I locked my focus on her. I kicked the back of her knee, causing her to stumble. I then slammed my palms into her, pushing my aura outwards to do some damage. I then shot my hands out again, grabbing her arms. I yanked her forward and hit her again with my aura, this time in the head. I checked my aura level, I'm almost out. I can do one last big hit.

"Pyrrha! Skyfall! 1!" I looked over at her. She was currently fighting Echo, perfect. Pyrrha kicked Echo up into the air, grabbing her mid-air, and throwing her at me. I pulled out my fire dust sword and got ready. I held my stance and… a small knife flew by, slicing my clenched fist. It burned and I faltered. Oh my gosh, I am going to murder Beryl! AHHHH! Echo slammed into me, knocked me into Beryl. After that, the both of us were too low on aura, and were sent out of the fight. We both walked off to the side and watched everyone else finish. I sat down, and Beryl followed my example. I focused on Nova. She didn't fight like the other Frost. Also, she seems to have a different semblance than the criminal.

I saw Echo flinch. Crap! She can hear my thoughts, can't she? "Well, I guess we can talk after? I would like some more information." I thought to myself. I saw Echo give a small nod. Then she spun her staff, the saws getting dangerously close to Pyrrha. I'm pretty sure I saw a slight glow around them. Nice.

I saw Ren deflect an arrow with his knives. He then kicked it back at Nova. Nova broke her bow in half, and they shifted into knives. She hit the arrow into the ground. She then threw her knife, and Ren easily dodged. Yolanda grabbed it, and dashed to the side, being boosted with her rocket things. Apparently, there was a wire connecting the knives. This picked Ren up and knocked him down.

Then, Nora noticed something I left on the stage. When I was knocked down, my weapons were "knocked" out of my holsters. Nora picked one up and shot herself. She smirked and raised up her hammer. She hit the nearest enemy, Nova, and sent her flying into Pyrrha, who blocked Nova with her shield and slammed her into the ground. She then shot her, for good measure. Then Echo and Yolanda's eyes glowed golden again and then turned back to normal.

"Crap!" Yolanda yelled.

"Shut up!" Echo yelled back. "Get over here!" Yolanda flew over and put her feet into Echo's hands. She then boosted off, flying at Ren. She tackled Ren to the ground. Then, Pyrrha's javelin flew at Echo. Echo blocked it with her staff and was knocked back a little bit. Nora then was supercharged again and hit Echo. Echo went flying towards the audience. She was caught by one of Goodwitch's glyph things and was set down next to us. I looked up and saw that Ren's aura was super low. It then dipped into the red. Yolanda flew away from him. Pyrrha blocked a kick and pushed her away. She dropped to the ground and kicked Pyrrha in the legs, but Pyrrha is stronger than me. She barely reacted to the kick, then scooped Yolanda up with her shield, throwing her into the air. Nora then came over and slammed her back into the ground.

"Good job, good job. Team JNPR is in the winner. And no one got hurt this time." Glynda said.

"I said I'm sorry!" I heard someone say from the crowd. Wow, I wasn't here for that one. I kind of wish I was.

"Now, just because you won, do not think there isn't room for improvement. You worked together well at sometimes. Your teamwork still needs work. The same goes for Team EBNY. Miss Nova's semblance is a crutch you can't always rely on. Also, Nora's strength and semblance isn't something you can always rely on too." The bell then rang. "I'm sorry that my lesson was cut a bit short, but I hope you all learned something today, class dismissed."

 **And there's chapter twelve! Sorry it took so long, there were a lot of changes from the original after input from my awesome beta readers and rethinking some stuff. And my school's picking up a bit too.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	14. Chapter 13

I pulled back the chair and sat down across from Echo. "Why are we meeting here?" I asked her. It was cafe number three.

"Because I like this place, it's my favorite so far." She said. "Besides, it would be weird if we met in a dorm room."

"I see," I told her. "But we could have met somewhere else on campus, we didn't have to meet here?"

"But I didn't want anyone to just walk across our conversation."

"Yes, so you went to one of the nicest and most public cafes in Vale." I leaned back in my chair. "Great idea!" I said, spreading my hands.

"Hello, would you like anything today?" A waiter walked up. "A drink? Perhaps some roses?"

Echo burst out laughing, and my face immediately started burning. "No thank you, I already got a rose right here. I would like a cup of coffee please. No milk." She said

"Hot chocolate please." I squeaked out.

"Okay." He walked away.

Echo sighed, before looking at me, smirking. "He thought we were on a date!"

"Shut up!"

"That's hilarious!"

"Just shut up please."

"Fine." She said. "And I wouldn't mess with your thing going on."

I sighed and put my face into one hand. "Do I even want to ask?"

"No, but I'll tell you anyway. Your thing with Pyrrha, you know that 'will they, won't they' thing going on. I'm not sure if you will, but I think you should."

"Wow, the weather is very nice today." I hastily changed the subject.

"Yes, yes it is. I love this day quite a bit." Her smile got a bit wider, showing some teeth.

"Great, nice talk." Okay, how about we talk about Nova."

Her smile somehow got wider, but then sighed, her smile fading. "Fine, we'll talk about Nova."

I shifted forward. "Okay, so I saw a person, fought them twice, who was with Roman Torchwick."

"The guy that was stealing all that dust? Wasn't he the reason you and Ruby got into Beacon?" Echo asked.

The waiter came and gave us our drinks. "Thank you." I told him.

"Yes, thank you." Echo told him, her ears twitching. He shot her a dark look, before turning to me.

"You're welcome, have a good day." He said, before walking away.

"Yes, him." I got back to our conversation. "She looks a lot Nova, and he kept calling her Frost, so I thought…" I kind of trailed off, and Echo finished my sentence.

"You thought it could have been Nova." I nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. Nova doesn't talk a lot about her past. But, I do know a few things from what she had said, and from stuff things I've gleaned from her mind. She has a twin sister." She then took a sip of her coffee, before spitting it out back into its cup, slamming it down. "Son of a- He put milk in this! I'm lactose intolerant that little…"

"Oh, I see, she has a sister." I cut off her outburst. "I get it. And they did have two different weapons and semblances."

"I swear, I'm going to… whatever. Yeah, and her parents are criminals. Well, were. They were killed in prison last year. We all learned about this when she was told. She doesn't usually show her emotions that much, so it was kind of obvious when it happened. Even though they weren't close, she was broken up for a while there."

"Oh, I… ok." I said. I wasn't sure what else to say.

"Well, this was nice." Echo said, hitting the table lightly with her palms.

"Wait, that was it?" I asked.

"Yeah, I mean didn't you get what you wanted? You know that she's not the criminal, she has a twin, so that explains who she is, what else do you want?"

"Well," I spluttered, "I mean, more details, more of her past, stuff like that."

"I don't have details." Echo said, shrugging. "And, well, I did talk to Nova after our fight. Her semblance allowed everyone to hear what I heard from your mind. So she knew that you knew. And she understood. She's a little uptight, and pretty closed off, but for whatever reason she still wanted you know what's going on. I've been her team for a couple of years, and I still don't understand her."

"That's really nice of her. Speaking of her semblance, what the crap is it?"

"It's a trade secret." She smirked. "But I will tell you one thing."

"Echo, I swear, if this is…"

"If you ask Pyrrha out to the dance, she'll say yes."

"Why are you like this!" Heads started turning. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Because I like messing with you. Teasing people is one of my favorite things to do. But I am right."

"How do you even know that it's not like you're a…" I trailed off, realizing what I was about to say.

"It's not like I'm a mind reader?" She pushed her cup off the table. "Oh, whoops."

"Shut up. And why do you even care?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "I ship it."

I had flashbacks to the war. That word… "But why are you pushing it so hard?"

"I don't know." She smiled. "I guess I just think you guys would be cute together. I ship it"

"But…" I felt my eyes change colors. "I just… I don't feel ready for something like that."

"Well," Echo paused for a little bit. "I guess you could try the upcoming dance? It could be a test run."

"But I don't…"

"Just think about it." She smiled. "I think you would be nice together, so just… just think about it." She then walked away.

I was then alone with my drink. "But…" I said to myself. "But I don't like dances." I swear I could hear her laughing.

My train of thought was interrupted when the waiter came over and handed me the bill. I heard a crunch, and we both looked down. He had stepped on one of the shards of the mug that Echo had been drinking from and then had broken. His nose wrinkled in disgust. "I should have known." He said. He then turned to me. "I'll have someone clean this up. Just pay the bill." I left enough lien to exactly cover the bill, no tip at all. Because screw that guy.

But while I walked out, an idea came to me. I probably need to write Nova a letter. That'll be pretty hard, I'm not the best at apologies and stuff like that. Other than if I bump into someone and say sorry, I'm not good at a long one.

Ugh, but I still should do it.

* * *

I woke up from doing some soul training right before I go to sleep. I looked around and saw the rest of my team were in the room. I caught Ren's eyes and nodded, having made my decision.

Ren nodded back. "Hey, Nora, I think I left something in the library, let's go back and get it." He grabbed Nora and started leading her out of the door.

"But can't you…"

"Nope, sorry." Ren closed the door behind themselves.

I got out of my bed and walked over to Pyrrha. "That was weird." She said.

"Yeah. So, I have a question for you." I told her.

"Ok sure, what is it?" She asked me.

My face started burning and my eyes changed to that weird color again. "So do you want to go to the dance with me?"

She inhaled a little bit, obviously surprised. "Um, yes. Yes of course!"

"I- thank you? I don't know what to do in this situation, I've never really done this before and I don't know what you're supposed to do in this situation. I'm sorry." I said, starting to ramble, rubbing the back of my neck.

"Well, you can…" She stopped and looked confused. "You're eyes are pink, what does that mean?"

"That's what that is, it's pink!" I exclaimed. "I didn't know what that was, and I never had a mirror. Oh, and I don't know what it means. So, what now?"

"Well, we need to get proper outfits. While we're at it, we can get you a better combat outfit." She said, pointedly.

"But what I have is really comfortable. I really like it." I averted my eyes from hers.

Wait, averted? Where'd that come from, that's a really weird… whatever. "But your outfit needs to have something memorable."

"But…" I saw the look in her eyes and trailed off. I was too tired to fight too strongly on this. "Fine. I guess I should have a nice outfit. Good night." I laid my head on the pillow. This time though, it took me a few minutes to fall asleep.

* * *

I stood with my arms spread, while a guy was taking my measurements. "I- I'm still not okay with this. I'm not sure I can afford this."

"It's okay, Ozpin set up a deal with me. It's nearly free." The guy said

"Really?" I turned to Pyrrha as much as I could. "Why didn't you just lead with that?"

"Because I was not aware of that deal." She said pointedly.

"When you got your outfit from me, you weren't a student at Beacon now, where you? And, you asked for armor so I had to get pieces special order. And, I had to ship it to you, and that took a lot of money. You should be happy with the price you got." He tightened one of those cloth tape measure things around my arm.

"Ow!" I winced.

"Aren't you at training to be a hunter? Man up." He stepped down. "I have all of the necessary measurements. Now if you'll please look at these things over here. You can choose from these. If you don't want any of them, I guess you could make a custom order if you want." He handed me a book.

I started looking through the book. "What about this one?"

"Well, we should look through all of them." Pyrrha said.

We rifled through all of them. Then I recognized one. It looked like something from some comic I had read on earth. "This looks nice. It's even green."

"That does look good." Pyrrha said.

"Okay, I'd like DD-8914 please." I pointed to it in the book.

"Good choice. You'll get that in about a week. I'll send you a message when you can come and pick it up. Here's the bill." He gave me a bill. Oh wow, this is actually pretty cheap. For a combat outfit, this is nice. It's not even double the candy order I get. "Forty percent up front, sixty on completion."

I pulled out my wallet, which is really closer to a coin purse because of what lien is made out of, and handed him some chips.

"Very good. Thank you for your patronage, and good day." He waved goodbye as we left.

* * *

I pulled out my scroll once we got back to the dorm room. I pulled up my dad's contact. I sent him a quick message. " _Hey, could I borrow a suit and tie? I'm going to the dance in a few days._ "

" _A dance?_ " He sent back. " _Are you okay? Do you have a fever?_ "

I sighed. " _I'm fine. I was just kind of pushed into it._ "

" _Are you sure you're okay? Are you going with someone?_ "

" _Yes to both questions._ "

" _Really?_ " Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad. " _Who?_ "

" _My teammate, Pyrrha._ "

" _Wow really? You got to her before everyone else asking her?_ "

I smiled at that. " _No, no one else was even trying. I guess she intimidated them._ "

" _She didn't intimidate you?_ "

" _Now, I never said that, did I?_ "

" _True. I'll send you a nice outfit. Have fun, and make good choices._ "

" _I will. Thanks!_ "

* * *

I opened up the box that had arrived at our dorm's doorstep. I thought we were supposed to get it. How did he even find out where we live? I didn't even give him my name! That's pretty creepy. I opened it up and I found a nice suit. I laid it out on my bed. My smile grew. I knew it was going to look good, but I think I'm really going to enjoy it. It's a little flashy, but I'll just have to deal with it. Both the top and pants are green, a nice shade in my opinion. There were white cuffs at the end of the sleeves. On the right shoulder, there was a gold cord, and there were some pockets with gold edging and buttons on them on the left side. There was also a black tie and these cool green things hanging off of the sides of the coat. I don't know how to describe them.

I'm bad at this, sorry.

"What's that?" Ren said. Nora and Pyrrha were out both doing something.

"This is my new outfit." I gestured to it.

"Wow, that's nice. It looks a lot better than a t-shirt and sweatpants." He smiled at me.

"I- that's... that's fair." I held it up to my body. "I kind of want to try it out. Want to spar some?"

Ren just shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

 **Hey guys, the new chapter is out now. Just so you know, his new outfit is based on the outfit that a character called Tang San had in Douluo Dalu (Soul Land) on chapter 89 page 14. You can look that up for a better picture of his outfit than I gave you.**

 **Also, there's something that's been happening. Don't look at anyone's bio on this site. There's some exploit in the script that someone has been using to hack to more people's bio. You can find more information on reddit, just so you know. I just figured you all should know.**

 **I hope you have a nice day, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	15. Chapter 14

**Hey guys, sorry this one took so long. This was pretty hard to write, but I'm not that disappointed with how it came out. I was also going to wait until after finals, but I had this prepared before then and didn't feel like waiting. Well, have a nice day, and hope you enjoy the chapter!**

My heart hammered in my chest as I faced my teammate. "Hey, you look…" I chuckled awkwardly a bit, looking down and breaking eye contact. "You look really nice." She was wearing a sleeveless full-length red dress that had those slits that came up and showed her legs. She also had her hair up like she usually did, with her gold tiara. And she did look really nice. I caught myself staring at her a little bit, and shook my head. Gosh, I need to grow up.

Pyrrha smiled. "Thank you." I was wearing a suit and tie. Both of our outfits were pretty basic. But she did look really nice. I just didn't know exactly what to say. I'm kind of awkward in these situations. I haven't done this before. Either time being alive.

"Well, should we go?" I gestured to the large building that we were by. It was the one that housed the dance.

"Yes, we are late, so we should probably hurry up."

"Okay." We approached the door before I stopped.

She turned and put a hand on my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just made a mistake."

"Is everything okay?"

I grimaced. "Yeah, just brace yourself. I didn't tell Yang anything."

She smiled, chuckling a little bit. "Well, then why don't we just go?"

"Yeah," I mumbled. "Let's just get this over with as soon as possible." I pushed open the doors and walked through. Yang turned her head from looking at Ruby and saw me.

Her face lit up. "Jade! You look wonderful!" Her gaze then turned to Pyrrha. "Pyrrha! I'm so glad to see you here! You two look great together!"

"Thank you, Yang." Pyrrha said.

"I hope you both have a great time together tonight!" Yang said. "I really wish I had known in advance, but it's nice to see the two of you together." We then walked past her and went to the party.

"She took that surprisingly well. I probably need to watch my back." I pursed my lips. "But we should just enjoy the night, right?"

"Yes. Is this really your first dance?" Pyrrha smiled.

"Yeah, I'm not that good with social things like this." I waved my hand at the whole dance. "I sometimes have a hard time breaking out of my shell and all that. Thanks for helping me with this."

Pyrrha smiled. "Well, then you should get some practice." A waltz came on in the background. My partner smiled. "And here is our best chance." She grabbed my hands. "Let's go." She then pulled me onto the dance floor.

We then just swayed back and forth to the waltz. I actually did know how to dance, to some extent. There were some lessons we had gotten at church activities. I had forgotten most of it, but I wasn't completely lost. Pyrrha did notice this, of course.

"Wow, you're not bad." She said.

"Yeah, well, it's not too hard." I smiled. "And you're a good leader. I can just follow what you're doing."

She smiled back. "Thanks." We swayed back and forth for a little while before she said something again. "This isn't so bad, is it?"

"No, it's not that bad." I actually hated dances back on Earth. These dances were the same, really. But I guess I just never had anyone to go with. That I actually wanted to go with anyway. There were technically people I could go with.

We swayed back and forth to the waltz for a while, until the song ended. I let go and then stepped away. "I'm going to get some punch, do you want some?"

"Yes please." She said.

I looked around as I walked over to the refreshments table. I saw Penny. She wasn't doing the robot, pure sacrilege. She was also with two soldiers. Makes sense. Wouldn't if I didn't know what I knew. But it's nice to see her having fun. Knowing what happens next of course.

Whatever, I'm trying to plan all of that. I shook my head, and my eyes changed from blue back to gold. I also saw Yang handing Blake off to Sun. I then reached the table and saw Ruby.

"Hey Ruby, I see you're hiding at the punch bowl." I said.

"Yeah. I kind of expected you to be here too." She said.

"Yeah, I was going to be here. But Echo kinda pushed me into asking Pyrrha out so now I'm going to do this and then, just, you know, die!" I smiled, taking two cups of punch. "See you!" I waved goodbye. Well, I tried but I had two cups of punch in my hands. I nearly spilled it on myself.

I walked over to Pyrrha and handed her a cup of the punch. "Thank you." She said.

"Oh yeah, no problem." I smiled. "I guess, do you want to dance again?"

"We just got punch, how are we going to dance with these?" She took a sip of her drink.

"Okay, then what do we do?" I asked. I really don't know what to do. I was hoping for Pyrrha to lead with these kinds of things.

"Well, we should talk to each other I guess." Pyrrha said.

"Okay. Well, then, we should go take a seat I guess."

"We should." She pointed to a table. We walked over and sat down.

Then we sat there. I started tapping my thumb. "So what do we talk about?" I asked.

"I… was hoping you'd know." Pyrrha said.

"But… haven't you done these things before?" I asked.

She sighed. "But I never did it with anyone else."

"But didn't anyone ask you? You had to dance with someone." I said. Oh, well I guess we found something to talk about.

"I had to ask them," Pyrrha said. "Everyone thought of me as some unattainable prize. I'd been on a pedestal for too long. I had become separated from the people that supported me. After a dance, they'd just leave. They thought I was too good for them. One declined because he thought other guys would beat him up because he danced with me, and they didn't get to." I coughed into my hand. She smiled. "Ridiculous, right?"

"Yes!" I started laughing, probably spurred on by the awkwardness of the situation.

"There were plenty of people like that." She said, still smiling. "Most just thought that I was on some level that they couldn't obtain. It had become impossible to make any kind of lasting relationship with anyone. Even with my family. With my parents, it was always get stronger, get more brand deals, and win, win, win. But you didn't care about that." She patted me on the arm.

"Well, you were becoming a student like me." And everyone was a main character. I was freaking out about everything and everyone. She was just another thing to freak out about. But she couldn't know that. Everything has just been a mask.

Is anything true at this point?

"I mean…" I began. "We were all in the same boat. Well, you probably trained more than me, but… You're human too." I said. "It's not like you're some kind of god."

She laughed a little bit at that. "Thanks. And thanks to you I'll have friends for the rest of my life." No… No, you don't understand how much that hurts. That really hurts. Pyrrha no… "I'm glad that you just see me for me. And I'm glad that I was able to meet you."

"Thank you." I beamed at her.

She beamed back. Pyrrha then hesitated, before reaching out and pulling me into a tight hug. I hesitantly wrapped my arms around her back. After a few seconds, she pulled away.

"I-" I choked out. "Thank you?" I grabbed my punch and quickly started taking a drink of my punch to hide my burning face. I glanced up and saw that her face was a little pink too. I coughed. "You just… I feel like I should tell you something too."

Pyrrha just grabbed my hand and stood up. She then pulled on my hand. "I don't care about that. It was just nice to talk to someone." She patted my arm. "Do you want to dance again?"

I smiled. "Yes please." I still felt bad about that. She just completely opened up to me. And I just… gave her nothing.

Wait, does that make me a therapist?

She pulled me up, and I followed her out onto the dance floor. We then began swaying back and forth. After a minute or two of dancing and pointless small talk, I saw Cinder step out. Well, my presence has changed a lot of things. I should probably check up on this, to make sure she doesn't nuke Atlas or something. The song ended, and I stepped back a bit. "Hey, I got to go to the bathroom. I'm sorry."

"Just go." She said.

"Thank you, so sorry!" I rushed out, dodging a few people along the way. I pulled out my scroll and called my locker over once I was at a safe distance. I pulled out my weapons and strapped them on. Doesn't Cinder go to… Well, that doesn't matter, I see her now. She was jumping along the rooftops. I brushed by Ruby on my way out, so I made myself invisible to her. Just to fix some complications, hopefully. I sprinted along with them. By the time Ruby had gotten to the CCTST, Cinder was already inside. Also, I was insanely out of breath. Ruby had used short bursts of her semblance some of the chase, you don't understand how hard it was to keep up with her.

I heard Ruby as she saw the knocked out the guard. She called her locker over and pulled out her weapon. We both ran in, but she was thinking she was alone. Which is kind of creepy. You know what, we're already approaching the elevator, everything will be fine. I made myself appear, and I tapped her on the shoulder. "Eep! Ah, Jade, what are you doing here?"

I shrugged. "I saw her too, and decided to follow you both." I smiled.

"Why'd you go invisible?" She asked.

I shrugged and smiled again. "Why not?" The elevator opened. "Let's go."

We walked into the elevator and I quickly pressed the button to go up. We sat in silence as the elevator went up to the floor. Ruby eventually broke the awkward silence. "How has your date been going?"

I sagged a bit. "I-I really don't know. I think it's going well. Well, went well at least. I don't have anything else to compare it too." I sighed. "Whatever, let's just…" The doors opened, and all the screens quickly changed from a queen chess piece, back to regular screens. Crap! No, we were too late! We didn't see anyone. Now, where did Cinder go? I don't remember Volume Two very well. Volume Three, definitely. I'm trying to come up with plans for that.

"Hello?" Ruby called out, warily stepping forward. She stumbled, and I grabbed her arm to steady her. It's amazing how she can use her semblance in those heels, but can't walk slowly in them. It's so stupid, I don't understand. Maybe Ruby's just insane "Is anyone there?" She called out.

I smirked. "Come out come out wherever you are!" Cinder slid up from her crouching position behind a counter. "Holy crap, it worked."  
Cinder squinted at me. Or glared, probably glared.

"Excuse me," Ruby said. "You know it's not a masquerade party, so why don't you take off that…" She trailed off as Cinder pulled out some dust, and threw it at us. Using glass? I'm not sure if that helps because Ruby was just able to spin her scythe and was easily able to block the attack. I dashed past her, swinging the two swords I quickly drew. Ruby backed me up with some sniper fire. Cinder easily blocked the sniper fire with one hand and conjured up a glass sword with the other one. She swung the sword, and blocked mine, moving me back a little bit. But, I had channeled some aura into my blades, so one blade was warped into spikes which broke against her own aura. The other was covered in a layer of ice, along with a bit of her forearm. Then she stepped back, to dodge Ruby's scythe swings. I dashed forward, and I swung my swords upwards at her. She jumped up, and her catsuit glowed orange. A bow formed, along with three arrows. She shot them at me, and I blocked them with my sword. I was blown backward a bit from the explosion. Something else hit me head on, and I was thrown backward. I slammed into the wall, hard. I heard the elevator open and opened my eyes. I saw Ruby turning away from the elevator, and I followed where she was looking. Cinder was gone.

I groaned. "Ow." I got up on shaky feet and took one step forward. "I am terribly sorry, Mr. Ironwood."

He sighed. "Come with me." He held the elevator open and we walked in with him. We descended in silence. When it opened up, Ironwood gestured for us to leave. "Sit down." We went over and sat down on the chairs that he had gestured to. Then, the elevator doors closed and we were alone.

"Do you think we're going to get in trouble?" Ruby asked me.

I shrugged. "I don't think we will, but who knows?" I know. We won't get in trouble. But I did make a mistake, and I realized that while we were sitting there. "I left my swords up there."

"You can get them back." Ruby said.

"Yeah… Eventually." I sighed. Then I felt a buzzing in my pocket. I pulled out my scroll and saw who was calling me. "Crap!" I said out loud.

"What?" Ruby asked, concerned.

"It's… I'll be fine." I answered my scroll. "Hello?" I asked.

"Hi, Jade! Are you okay? You've been in the bathroom for a long time." I heard Pyrrha's voice come through my scroll.

I glanced to the side and saw Ruby smiling. She was holding in a laugh. Filthy Peasant. "Yeah, I'm fine. I saw Ruby following some weird woman, so I followed them. Then… um… We tracked her to the CCTST. We fought her, Ironwood showed up, she disappeared, and we're waiting for him to allow us to leave."

"Were you hurt?" She asked.

"No, no, no! I'm fine, I'm fine. But, um... I did get my butt kicked." I smiled sheepishly, even though it's over the phone. "But no one got hurt, we're all fine."

"Okay good. Will I be able to see you again? Tonight, I mean." Pyrrha asked.

"You should be able to. I'll try and get at least one more dance with you." I told her.

"Okay. Well, hopefully, I'll see you soon." Pyrrha said.

"Yes. Aboo!" My face froze, along with my blood. Crap, I just said aboo to her.

"What?" Pyrrha sounded very confused.

"It's nothing bye! See you soon!" I hung up on her.

Ruby burst out laughing. She could barely get her words out. "You-you said that you- that you loved her!"

"It just slipped out, okay? And it's not like she knows that!" Aboo was a thing I used to say on Earth, and I started saying in Remnant too. It came from when my grandparents were dating, and instead of saying something like, 'Bye, I love you.' they just said, 'Aboo.' It just became something that we all said. I started using it in Remnant as a way to hold on to Earth. Ruby, Yang, and Taiyang know what it means, but no one else does. I stopped when I started going to Beacon, to avoid confusion. But… it just kind of slipped out.

Ruby continued to laugh. "Just please, don't tell her what it means, okay?"

She calmed down enough to speak normally. "Okay. Your secret's safe with me bro. And Yang. If I get a bunch of cookies."

I sighed, my face burning. "Fine. If that's what must be done, very well. I am prepared to make that sacrifice for the greater good." My eyes widened. "Oh wow, I'm tired."

A guard then approached us. "You are free to go for now. Ironwood does want to talk to you, but he's doing to do that tomorrow."

I jumped up from where I was sitting. "Okay, thank you. Have a nice day."

"Oh, yes." Ruby stood up too. "Have a good day."

The guard nodded. "You two too."

Well, let's go get at least one more dance. I smell like smoke a little bit. But who cares?

I've found that I like dancing.

What an interesting revelation.


	16. Chapter 15

Hey guys, here's chapter 15! I don't really have much to say, except I hope you have a great day!  
Also, shoutout to my amazing beta readers, NevTSC, Archer1eye, and Boyy2k. They're just the best, and have helped out a ton.

The elevator dinged, and we heard Ozpin talk through the door. "Come in." I pressed a button, and the doors opened.

"Sorry, we would have been faster if someone hadn't pressed half the buttons before that privilege was taken away from her." I said pointedly.

"It wasn't me." Ruby said.

"Thank you both for coming," Ozpin said. I glanced around and saw both Ironwood and Goodwitch.

"How are you two feeling?" I noticed that Ironwood looked angry, Glynda was exasperated, and everyone was deadly serious. I guess that means that this isn't really a good time to make any jokes. Crap, this is going to be awkward.

"Pretty good," I said. "Last night was pretty fun, except losing the fight to the woman."

"Yeah, I'd feel better if my bad guy catching record wasn't 0 for 3." Ruby chuckled a bit.

"Ruby!" I hissed, elbowing her slightly.

She looked around the room and saw their faces. "Okay, so that's the tone we're going for, got it…" She said meekly. Her arms went from in some awkward position, to behind her back, copying me.

Ironwood moved from his position by the desk and started walking over. Glynda just stood there with her arms folded. He rested his hands on our shoulders and started talking "Ruby, Jade, I feel that it's appropriate to let you know that I think what you did last night is exactly what being a Huntress or a Hunter is all about. You two recognized a threat, you took action, and you did the very best you could." His… words were comforting. But he sounded a little bit like he was addressing soldiers. Just the way he was talking, it was weird. But he's the military leader, not just the headmaster, so he probably views us as soldiers.

Holy crap! I and Ruby are totally children soldiers! Everyone else is around eighteen, but we're minors.

But, I mean, he is backing us up. That kind of feels good. After all, he is a general, and a headmaster.

It was just kind of cool.

"Thank you, sir." Ruby said.

I didn't meet his eye, my smile fading. "It wasn't enough though." I said.

"The General has already informed us of the events that transpired last night. But now that you two are rested, we were wondering if you two would have anything to add." Ozpin asked us.

"Was anybody else with her? Did she look familiar to you at all?" Glynda asked animatedly, and I felt kind of pressured by her questions.

"Um… Yeah. She looked a lot like that woman you saved us from, but I really can't be sure, because she was wearing a mask. But she did fight with glass, which was weird." I said while lightly scratching my head

"Yeah. She never said anything either. But the glass didn't look like her semblance. And her clothes lit up when she attacked." Ruby said.

"Save for the glass, that does sound like the person I fought the night we met Jade and Ruby." Glynda said, sounding deep in thought.

"Embedding dust into clothing is an age-old technique," Ironwood said. "It could have been anyone."

"Wait, do you think this woman is connected to Torchwick and the White Fang?" Ruby asked them.

"It's possible," Ozpin said. He had been standing up the whole time. I noticed he stayed very calm during this whole time. He was completely stoic. He probably wants to stay strong so that he'll look professional. Probably so we'll be strong too. I saw Ruby glance down out of the corner of my eye. "But we still lack the required evidence to link the two together."

"Actually," Ruby cut in. "I-I think I remember her saying something about a hideout or something… in the Southeast. Just outside the Kingdom."

Ozpin smiled. Yeah, he knows that's a lie. Ruby's not good at lying at all. "Interesting."

Glynda cut into this. "I thought you said the intruder never-"

"Thank you for your cooperation Ruby, Jade," Ozpin said. "Why don't you go and spend some time with your teams. You both have a big day ahead of you."

"Anytime." Ruby said.

"Yeah," I said. "Always happy to help." But what did I even do?

How did I help?

"And Miss, Mister Rose, please try to be discreet about this matter." Ozpin asked us.

Ruby turned around, as she had begun to leave. "Yes, sir."

I nodded. "Yes, sir." I paused before leaving. "Um, Mister Ironwood, may I ask a question?" He gave a slight nod. Maybe this will do something. "I noticed we were in the computer room, did you check if she did anything to them? The computers, I mean."

"Yes, we did. If she has done anything to them, it is too small or too subtle to notice. We have people searching deeper, but haven't found anything."

Dangit! "Ok, sorry." We then entered into the elevator reached for the buttons, and I cut her off. "Not again." I said.

She pouted. "Fine."

I got back to the room and Nora jumped from her bed and rushed up to the door. "So what happened?" She asked.

I shrugged. "There was a fight, and Ozpin wanted some details. Nothing much." It was important. But… they aren't supposed to know. So I shouldn't tell them, right? "But we need to get ready for our first missions."

"We are ready." Ren said.

"Sorry, we were preparing while you were gone." Pyrrha said. She was fully armored up. We… probably won't need that. But it doesn't hurt to be prepared, I guess. And, uh… I'm not complaining.

"Okay." I said cheerfully. "Well, I'll start getting ready." I grabbed my new outfit and headed into the bathroom. I hung it up. I then stared at my hands.

What have I changed?

I wanted to make it better, but I'm too scared to do anything. I gripped the counter. Time is running out. The Fall of Beacon is getting closer and closer every day.

What can I do?

But can I change anything? I haven't been able to so far. Everything has ended the same.

My eyes widened.

Only of the details changed. Things added, but the overall effects were the same. I helped out with fighting against Roman, but there was Nova's twin. Her presence meant that nothing actually changed. I'm being stopped from changing things.

But this isn't something to just throw around. I need to think about that more, after all, I could be-

I heard a knock on the door. "Jade?" Pyrrha asked. She sounded worried.

"Yes?"

"Are you okay? You've been in there for a while."

"Yeah, I just got lost in thought." I grabbed my costume off of the wall. "I'll be out in a minute or two."

"Okay." She said.

I quickly pulled on my costume and walked out.

"Come on, let's go!" Nora said once I left the bathroom. She quickly threw open the door, and power walked out.

I sighed. "Onward, I guess."

After Ozpin's speech, my team walked over to one of the screens. I sighed. "This maybe? First-year students can't really do anything interesting." I gestured to 'Perimeter Defence' on the screen. My teammates just shrugged. "That helps." I clicked on it and got a few choices of huntsman. Seriously? There's more than one huntsman wanting to do that? I highlighted one and looked back at my teammates. Again, I got shrugs and noncommittal grunts. I love my team, they're awesome, but come on guys. I confirmed the choice and smiled. "We're supposed to meet our huntsman later today. Do you want to go spar while we wait?" I asked Pyrrha.

"That sounds lovely." She said, smiling.

"But what about us?" Nora asked impatiently.

"I'm sure that Ren can think of something for you both to do." I told her.

Nora's face lit up, and Ren gave me a betrayed look. I gave him a sympathetic smile as Nora dragged him away.

"Well, I guess we should go now. Could we work on sword fighting some?" I asked.

"Of course." She smiled deviously. Oh no, she has something planned, doesn't she?

I blocked Pyrrha's sword with mine and was pushed back a bit. She bared down, and I pushed back with my sword. Then she leaned in forward and gave me a quick peck on the lips. I was startled and stumbled back. She pushed down with her sword again, and I lost my balance, with my sword being knocked out of my hands. When I hit the ground, I glared up at Pyrrha. "What was that for?"

She laughed. "You've got to be prepared for these things. That's not even close to the weirdest things that have happened to me in a tournament."

What the crap? What have people done to her? "Aren't those things against the rules?"

"People can't tell if you're subtle." What? What does that mean? How far are people willing to go to win? She reached out her hand, and I grasped it. She pulled me up, and I saw she was smirking.

"Did you do that just to mess with me?" I asked her.

"Not only that, but you do need to be prepared. Maybe not when you're fighting against Grimm, but it's good to know." She patted me on the shoulder, and I turned away, blushing a bit. I saw her smile, just sitting there.

On her face.

Mocking me.

My eyebrow twitched in annoyance. Her smile only got bigger. "I guess we should probably go now. We're supposed to meet the hunter soon." I said, sheathing my sword.

"Okay. Let's go." She grabbed my hand, and we walked out.

We met with our huntsman about twenty minutes after that. He took us to the perimeter, and we started patrolling one section of it. The perimeter wasn't like a wall or anything concrete. It was just a border that was patrolled by soldiers and hunters. Our huntsman's name was Rinc Byrne. He was wearing a nice black suit. He had a black and gold staff strapped to his back. His hair was even black, with these gold flakes in it.

"Now, perimeter defense isn't a very exciting job. If you want that you should have signed up for search and destroy." He told us.

"Sorry sir, but we couldn't sign up for that. We're only first-year students." I told him.

He smiled. "I know. But sometimes some Grimm attack here, but they're just weak. That's like defeating a fire controlling dragon by controlling bugs." He glanced back to us, still smiling. His smile faded, and he turned away. "Whatever, I don't care what you think."

We spent the whole time talking. Literally nothing happened. Team RWBY got to go on this cool thing.

Killed a bunch of Grimm, all of that stuff. But you know what we get to do?

Literally nothing but talk to this huntsman, and get a few tips. Not even super useful ones, but whatever. So I decided why not? I talked to him, laughed at his jokes, after all some of them weren't that bad. He's pretty cool, even if his advice isn't the best.


	17. Chapter 16

The next morning we were meeting with Rinc to prepare for the day. "So is everybody good?" Rinc asked us.

I smiled. "We're combat ready." I resisted laughing at my joke because no one else would get it.

"That's great! Let's go then!" We started walking towards the edge of the city before a siren cut us off. I winced, and Nora covered her ears. Rinc was suddenly deadly serious. "Grimm." Green energy quickly expanded from his body and formed into a car. "We're changing the mission! Everyone get in!"

"A car?" I laughed.

"Yep! Now hurry up!" We all climbed into the car. He sped off instantly. We quickly got to the center of the city, where Grimm were congregating. RWBY had already started the fight and were killing Grimm, but this was just the beginning. It always got worse.

Rinc skidded to a stop. Which doesn't make sense because the tires weren't rubber, but aura. He had explained to us on the way there that his semblance was that he could make his aura into a tangible object, and manipulate it. But I decided to just not question the skidding. Semblances are weird. He re-absorbed the car. "Come on! Let's kill some Grimm!"

"Got it! Pyrrha! You work with Nora to take out Grimm! Ren! You come with me to help the civilians!" Everyone agreed, and we split off. "Let's go!" I pointed my guns at an Ursa. "Come on, let's go!" I saw the small family it was heading towards, who were cowering. Well, I guess that kind of makes sense. They've probably never seen Grimm before. I shot at the large bear Grimm. Bursts of both blue and yellow smashed into it. Lightning arced over its body, and explosions of ice erupted from it. I also saw peppering of gunfire where Ren was helping. I ran over and spun my guns into knives. I slashed at it all over its body, leaving trails of ice behind. Ren quickly came in and decapitated the thing. I helped the family up. "Come on, let's go!" I pushed them away, and they ran off. But then several Creeps cut us off. "Get behind us!" I said. "Ren, Swarm!"

"Okay." He said. We stood in front of the family. The Creeps rushed at us. I hit one with an open palm, pushing my aura out with explosive force, and its head exploded. Ren did a similar thing to another one. We made quick work of them, and we waved the family forward. They ran off. We looked around but didn't find any other civilians.

"That must have been it. Let's kill some Grimm I guess." I pulled my guns back out.

"Agreed." Ren said.

I quickly glanced over the battlefield. I saw a pack of Beowolves with some creeps mixed in fighting Pyrrha in one edge of the battlefield. But, I had more immediate concerns. I spun my guns to the right dusts, fire and wind. I shot an Ursa that was closing in with bursts of fire from my right gun. Then, with my left, a continuous stream of wind, which fanned the flames, causing them to quickly envelop the Grimm. I jumped up, spinning my guns, and slashed at its throat with both daggers. I kicked off of it as it fell to the ground, dead. I began to run, holstering my guns and switching to two of my swords. I channeled my aura into the dark purple sword and jumped towards where Pyrrha was. This jumped was boosted by the gravity dust in the sword. I slashed with electric energy with the sword on my right at a creep, with it quickly collapsing. Pyrrha was whirling around, stabbing Grimm left and right. I saw that a Beowolf had climbed a building side, and leaped down a Pyrrha. I jumped up at it, spearing it through the head with my electric dust sword. I fell to the ground with it.

"Everyone's out that I can see!" I said.

"Good!" Pyrrha ducked under an attack and threw the Beowolf into the air. I knocked it down with a quick strike, and it started to evaporate.

"Shield, up!" I yelled. I sheathed my gravity sword and pulled it out with the ice blade. I jumped on Pyrrha's shield and was propelled into the air. I sent out blade beams of both ice and lightning, killing multiple Grimm. I hit the ground and nearly collapsed. A Boarbatusk barreled at me. I got ready to dodge, but then the Boarbatusk was ripped apart by gunfire from above. I looked up and saw a swarm of Atlas ships in the sky.

The cavalry had arrived.

I sheathed my swords again and pulled out my guns. I provided some cover fire to help out. But, with the arrival of Atlas military, CFVY, and, I hate to say it, _Cinder's team_ was even helping, we were quickly wrapping everything up. I saw that I was doing nothing and put my guns away.

I took a step forward and stumbled a bit. Pyrrha grabbed my shoulder and supported me. "Are you okay?"

"I may have used a bit too much aura," I said. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's fine." She said. "It looks like everyone else has this covered, it's okay to rest."

"Ok," I said. I watched as several green spears erupted out of the ground, spearing a bunch of Grimm. A few even reached up and attacked the Nevermore's in the sky. "Yeah, it looks a lot like I'm not needed right now."

Eventually, most of the Grimm were exterminated, largely thanks to the Atlesian military. They found Torchwick eventually. I watched him being dragged onto a Bullhead, mumbling something about his hat.

Pyrrha and I met up with the rest of JNPR. "Great job everyone," I said, holding back a yawn. Ren and I exchanged nods, I gave a high five to Nora, and a quick hug to Pyrrha.

"Yeah! We kicked butt!" Nora yelled.

"Yeah, we did," Rinc said while walking up. "You guys were great out there. I think after today, our partnership will end so…" He reached out his hand for me to shake. "I guess it's farewell."

I grabbed his hand. "I think so too." We gave a firm handshake. He continued on to shake everyone else's hand.

"Goodbye for now." He said. Then a green motorcycle formed below him and he drove off.

He's kind of weird, but he's not that bad.

 **This is pretty short, but there should be another one coming soon!**


	18. Chapter 17

I gripped the gun tightly in my hands. This is my last shot, I have to make it. I breathed through my nose, and while I exhaled, I fired. I heard a tink from the back.

I missed.

"Better luck next time kid." The man running the game said.

" **I knew it! This gun is bent!" I yelled. "That filthy peasant is going to d-** Thanks sir, but I'm sorry to say there won't be a next time. Have a good day. **You filthy con-man!"** I sighed and started off. I looked over at Pyrrha who was holding back a laugh. "Sorry I couldn't get anything."

"You're cute when you're angry." She said.

I glanced away as my eyes lightened from red to pink. "Thanks." I felt my cheeks redden when Pyrrha leaned over and gave me a light kiss.

I heard a squeal, followed quickly by a "Quiet Nora!"

I took a short step away from Pyrrha. "Hello, you two!" I said, embarrassed. Pyrrha was giggling beside me.

"We're getting lunch!" Nora yelled at us.

"Come over here!" Pyrrha yelled at them.

"We found a cool noodle place. Come on!" Nora grabbed our hands.

She dragged us over to a stand a little bit away. I saw that RWBY was already there. Weiss' card flew back at her, and Blake cried once her fish were taken away. "Perhaps I could help." Pyrrha told them.

"Pyrrhaaaa! And Jaaaade!" Ruby cheered.

Yang smiled. "Aww, you don't have to."

"But she could!" Blake said. She leaned over in desperation, causing Weiss to shift in her chair.

"Well, I think you all earned it after that battle!" Pyrrha told them.

"Yes! You guys were amazing out there!" I said.

"Can we join you?" Nora asked excitedly.

Twenty minutes later, we leaned back, after eating a gigantic meal of noodles. "Are you sure it's wise to have eaten before a fight?" Ren asked.

"When have we ever done anything wise?" I asked.

"It's fine, it will give us energy!" Pyrrha said, raising up a fist.

After that, Nora let out a gigantic burp. How was she even able to hold that much air in her stomach, along with all that food? That doesn't even… whatever.

"Well, we should be off." Pyrrha said, standing up. I slowly raised myself up beside her.

"So, you think you guys are ready?" Ruby asked.

"When are we ever?" I asked

"Of course," Nora said, ignoring what I just said. "We've got a world-renowned fighter on our team, what's basically a ninja, I can bench five of me, Jade can trick people into fighting each other, we've trained all year, our weapons are _awesome_ , Glynda barely yells at us anymore, and, we've got some amazing team moves!" Nora shrugged. "Anyway, you guys shouldn't be so nervous! The worst thing that could happen is that we lose! Then it's just a few more years of walking around school with everyone knowing that we're failures, our friends will slowly abandon us to preserve their social status, we won't be able to show our faces in class, no one will sit with us in the cafeteria, Ren and I have no parents so we have no home left to go to, we'll be officially renamed team LOSE-iper!" Nora laughed insanely before starting to sob. Also, lose-iper sounds a lot like Lucifer. Just saying.

"Soo, yeah. We're feeling pretty good." Ren said as Nora slammed her head onto the counter.

"Don't fret!" Pyrrha said, patting Nora on the back comfortingly. "If anything, we should be looking forward to a fight with actual guidelines, and not… well… murderers."

"Yeah," I said. "With all the crap we've been through, this should be a cakewalk!"

"Let's see," Blake said. "Grimm invasion, violent extremists, a destructive sociopath…" Black trailed off, counting the things on her fingers.

"And that's all while we were in training! Oh, imagine what it'll be like when we graduate!" Ruby squealed.

"Is that really something to look forward to Ruby? Closer brushes to death! Yay!" I shook my head.

"Maybe then I'll be able to pay for a meal." Weiss muttered under her breath.

"Would team JNPR please report to the battlegrounds immediately?" Port asked through the intercom.

"Yes! Like they were scheduled to be several minutes ago!" Wow, I didn't remember Oobleck as passive-aggressive.

"Well, it looks like this is it." Pyrrha told team RWBY.

"Yeah!" I smirked. "Time to murder… sorry, fight, some people."

"Go get em!" Ruby cheered.

* * *

I stared at my opponents, Team BRNZ. I noticed that the two we got were forest and then a mountain with a lightning cloud. Oh yeah, that's useful. Okay, so we've got claws, flying buzzsaws, a cattle prod, and a sniper. If we can get close to the sniper, we can take her out. But, if I remember correctly, BRNZ is really good with hand-to-hand combat.

"Nora," I whispered. "Bait the guy with the cattle prod into shocking you."

"Okay." She said.

"3...2...1… Begin!"

The sniper ran back into the forest while the other three ran forward at us. Claws attacked Pyrrha, Nora got the attention of Cattle Prod and Saw ran after me. I saw that Ren was running at the sniper, but some powerful shots cut him off.

"Everyone! Sniper! Keep moving!" I yelled. Saw smirked as his fist flew forward, and a saw came close. I dodged and hit him in the arm.

He swung again and I dodged back **it connected.** **I stumbled back** I stepped to the side as he stepped forward. I stabbed my dagger up, and it connected with him, spreading a patch of ice on his arm. He turned around and hit me with his other fist. I was knocked almost to the ground, **back a few inches**. I jumped to the left **dodged to the right** and lunged forward. Saw swung at air **me** and I slammed my palms into his back. He was propelled forward with an aura blast, and he tumbled on the ground. I felt a sharp pain in my side, and I was suddenly flying through the air. Crap, that was probably the sniper. I scrambled up once I stopped, and quickly got behind cover.

"Oho, looks like one of my favorite students, Nora Valkyrie, is charging up to use her semblance." Yes! It happened!

I blocked out what my teachers were saying, and scanned the battlefield. "Ren! Distract the sniper!" I yelled.

"Sure, why not?" He sarcastically called back.

Nora hit the cattle prod dude and sent him flying. I heard lightning crackling up on the mountain. Nice.

"Pyrrha! Heaven's Fall on the mountain! I'll cover you!" I switched to pistols and gave Pyrrha some cover fire. Not that she really needed it, she was running, and sliding all over the place. It was really cool. I switched to just one sword once she got next to Nora.

I glanced up, and Nora was almost all the way up. I ran over to help Pyrrha, as much as she needs it. I sliced upwards at Claw guy. He quickly dodged it, then caught my sword in his claws. He smirked. He then tried to wrench my sword out of my hands and met no resistance. I let go of my sword and punched him with an aura infused strike. I then drew my other sword, slicing upwards. Claw then hit me in the side of the knee with his shin, and I fell a bit to that one side. He gripped my shoulder with his claws, then swiftly punched me in the face. I staggered back a little bit and then ducked down **stepped back**. I sprung up when he took a step forward and stabbed him with one of my knives. I then dashed backward, because I heard Nora yelling. Pyrrha then pushed the other two close to Claw. Nora slammed down, and her giant strength made a large crater in the arena. The three guys in the enemy team were thrown backward and landed next to the sniper from their team.

"Let's go! Heaven's Fall! Swarm!" Pyrrha threw Nora into the air as I and Ren ran forward. The sniper then shot me. I fell to the ground.

"Oh, and it looks like Jade is out!" I glanced up to the screen, and my aura was in the red.

Luckily they didn't really need me. Ren got off a few hits before he jumped out the way. Nora hit the ground, then swung her hammer hard, sending them flying out of the ring.

"And with that, it appears that Team JNPR wins by knockout. Literally. Can someone go make sure they're okay?"

"Yeah!" I cheered.


	19. Chapter 18

"I was defeated… by the mere sight… of the Innkeeper's skirt length!"

"Soaring Ninja Wins!" The announcer on the game said. "Total Annihilation!"

"You are the worst!" Yang yelled at him, tossing a pillow at Qrow. I laughed at her along with Ruby, who I was sitting next to, and Qrow.

"Best two out of three?" Qrow asked.

"Nah, my turn!" I held out my hand. Yang tossed it back to me. She moved to the side, while I slid into place in between her and Qrow.

"So, Uncle Qrow, did you get in trouble with Ozpin?" Ruby asked as we started up the next round. She was the only one on the beds, everyone else on the floor. I gripped the controller, and lightly bumped Qrow with my elbow.

"Nah, me and Oz go way back," Ozpin said. "We're cool."

Yang scoffed. "Cool for an old guy."

"Oooh!" I cheered.

"Not funny." He said.

"Fight!" Said the announcer, and our fight began. I began subtly using my semblance to mess with the fight.

"Hey, so, what are you doing here anyway? I thought Dad said you'd be away for, like… ever." Ruby asked. This was true, we were not expecting to see him until we were pro Huntsmen ourselves. I mean, they did at least.

"What the crap is... " Qrow shook his head. "A professional huntsman like myself is expected to get results as soon as possible."

"Yeah, I get that," Ruby said. "We're pretty much pros too." I snorted at that.

"Jade, that's cheating." Yang interjected.

"I have no idea what you mean." I said, innocently.

"Are you…" Qrow said, leaning in to look at the TV. "Stop using your semblance Jade." He told me.

I sighed. "Fine." I dropped my semblance.

"Wait, I'm that…" Qrow growled under his breath. "So, you're basically pros?" He asked.

"Pssh, yeah! We totally saved Vale while you were gone. Read the news sometime." Yang told him.

"Funny, because I heard that Vale suffered a Grimm attack after you almost stopped a train." Qrow said.

"Soaring Ninja wins!" The announcer said. "Total Annihilation!"

"That's bullcrap! I cheated and I couldn't even win!" I yelled. "I was so close!"

"But they don't give out medals for almost." Qrow smugly told us both.

"They do and they're called silver!" Ruby interjected.

"Yeah!" I added in. "And bronze!"

"Well, we helped take down Roman Torchwick," Yang said. "He's locked up in Ironwood's ship and crime's been down ever since."

"You… do you follow crime analytics?" I asked her.

"No!" She said very unconvincingly.

"Sure you may be acting like a Huntress, but you aren't thinking like one," Qrow told her pointedly. "Do you really think that four girls and their friends could end all crime in a Kingdom?"

"It's highly unlikely." I said.

"I mean, I did until you said that." Ruby told him.

"Violence hasn't dropped since Roman got nabbed. It's stopped." Qrow said. "Completely. No White Fang activity anywhere in the city. You cut off the head of the King Taijitu, but now the second one is calling the shots. That's what Ironwood couldn't get through that thick metal head of his."

"You think they're gearing up for something? Something big?" I asked.

"Also… you know the General?" Yang asked.

"Hey, I know everyone to some extent. Remember, you're talking to a member of the coolest team to ever graduate Beacon." He sighed and pulled out a picture. It was tear and mug stained. Yang's eyes started widening while staring at her mother in the picture. "That's where I met your parents. We were pretty well known back in the day."

"Well known for crummy fashion sense." Ruby laughed.

"Hey, we looked good!" He smirked. "And I have a number of inappropriate stories that'll back that up." He noticed Yang's expression and he swiped it away. "But I'll save those for when you're older."

"Eww, gross!" I laughed at Ruby's reaction.

"Anyway, I'm too old to be hanging out with a couple of kids. You're gonna cramp my style." He stood up and started walking out of the door, but stopped just outside the door. "Look… just remember that you've still got a long way to go." He spun around and held up a finger. "And don't think for a second that graduating means you're done. Every day out there is worth a week in this place! You two…" He pointed at Ruby and Yang. "You're going to go far. You…" He pointed at me. "Ehh. You'll only get anywhere if you keep learning if you never stop moving forward." He walked away.

"Well, I'm going to go train some, then I'll need to talk with my team," I told them while leaving RWBY's dorm room. "Good luck on your next fight! I'll be there cheering you on!"

* * *

"I think it should be me and Pyrrha," I said. I glanced around as we hung out near a vendor. "She's a renowned fighter, and my semblance is better when it's closer to one on one."

"But what about Nora?" Ren asked. We were planning on who should move on to the two on two round. "She's very strong. With her semblance, she can easily beat most opponents, if she gets a charge."

"Yeah! I'll break their legs!" Nora crushed the paper cone that cotton candy had previously been in.

"We can prepare some lightning dust to easily boost her semblance." Ren said.

"But if I'm able to touch them, I basically win. The only reason I was knocked out last round was because of that sniper." I protested.

"But that's only if you're able to touch them," Pyrrha said. "I think the best option is for me and Nora to move on."

I mentally sighed. I was outvoted, there was nothing I could do. "Okay, we'll go with Pyrrha and Nora to go on to the 2v2 round."

I had to think. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. I want to be able to save Penny and Pyrrha. But I might be able to get Nora to the last round. She wouldn't kill Penny, right? I don't think she'd be able to. How else could I…

I don't know. I'll have to think more about it.

I glanced around and saw a girl behind us. She was wearing a black and white blouse with a bow and had her hair up in twin tails. I recognized who it was. This was how Neo was disguised during volume three. I was watching the battles earlier and saw their fight. She was probably spying on us with how close she was. I watched as she gave me a wink, and walked away.

Sometimes I just hate people.


	20. Announcement

I just want to say to everyone, that I won't be writing the Jade Demon anymore. My heart isn't in it anymore, and I feel like it got worse, and was just lower quality as of late.

I was thinking about stopping already, and then my laptop broke, so...

I'm sorry about just kind of stopping right here. Thank you all so much for your support, and I'd like to give a special thanks to Archer1eye, Boyy2k, and NevTSC. They were my beta readers, and they really helped me out a lot.

I will still be writing. It might not be on this site, but I have started writing on SpaceBattles.


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